Thai Court Orders Thaksin, Ex-Premier, to Serve a Year in Prison

The Supreme Court’s ruling, stemming from past convictions on charges of corruption and abuse of power, was the latest blow to Thaksin Shinawatra.

A Thai court on Tuesday ordered Thaksin Shinawatra, an influential and polarizing former prime minister, to serve a year in prison for previous convictions, the latest blow to his political fortunes.

The Supreme Court in Bangkok ordered Mr. Thaksin, 76, to report to a prison in the city later on Tuesday. He begins his term just days after his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra was dismissed as prime minister.

His case stemmed from a dizzying series of events in 2023, when Mr. Thaksin made a dramatic return to Thailand after years in self-exile.

Mr. Thaksin, who had been ousted in a coup, was convicted in absentia on charges of corruption and abuse of power. On his return, he was promptly sentenced to eight years in prison. But when he reported to prison, he said he was feeling ill and was transferred to a hospital.

Mr. Thaksin then spent six months in a V.I.P. suite at the hospital and was released after receiving a royal pardon. His sentence was eventually commuted.

But on Tuesday, a five-judge panel ruled Mr. Thaksin’s condition at the time — including chest tightness, hypertension and low blood oxygen levels — was not critical enough to require a stay in the hospital.

Mr. Thaksin appeared calm and was smiling as the sentence was announced. His two daughters and sons-in-law sat behind him. After the judges left the room, Ms. Paetongtarn walked over to Mr. Thaksin to speak with him.

In a statement released after the court proceedings, Mr. Thaksin said he accepted the prison term, saying he wanted to “look forward, to bring closure to everything in the past — whether legal battles or conflicts related to me.”

“From today, though I may lose my freedom, I still retain freedom of thought for the benefit of the nation and its people,” he said. He added that he would devote the rest of his life to serving the monarchy, Thailand and its people.

The sentence could help Mr. Thaksin shore up political support, said Isra Sunthornvut, who heads the Thailand office of Vriens & Partners, a government affairs consultancy.

“The industry of ‘I hate Thaksin’ that has been here for 20 years, they would have nothing to hate anymore,” he said.

For decades, Mr. Thaksin, a telecom billionaire, grappled for power with Thailand’s royalist-military establishment. Many of the country’s elites saw his election as prime minister in 2001 as a threat. He won a second term but was removed in a coup. He went voluntarily into exile, living mostly in Dubai, but he remained a force in Thai politics.

Mr. Thaksin’s return to Thailand, it was widely believed, was possible only with the tacit approval of his old foes in the establishment. At the time, royalists were contending with a new adversary: the progressive Move Forward Party, which had won the most votes in the 2023 election.

To the alarm of the royalists, Move Forward wanted to soften a draconian law that makes it a crime to criticize the monarchy. In the maneuvering that followed the election, Move Forward was prevented from forming the next government, and Mr. Thaksin’s party, which had finished second in the voting, stepped in to fill the void.

A year after his return to Thailand, it appeared that Mr. Thaksin’s political troubles were over. He had avoided prison, and Ms. Paetongtarn became the third Shinawatra to serve as prime minister, after her father and an aunt.

But threats to the Shinawatras’ grasp on power were always in the background. Mr. Thaksin was facing a charge of royal defamation, on which he was eventually acquitted. In April, the Supreme Court announced that it would look into the circumstances of Mr. Thaksin’s hospital stay.

Last month, another court, the Constitutional Court, dismissed Ms. Paetongtarn from office for ethics violations. Those charges stemmed from a conversation she had with the Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, in which she seemed to be differential to the foreign leader.

Then, late on Thursday, Mr. Thaksin abruptly flew to Dubai, spurring speculation that he was returning to self-exile. But he denied those reports, and by Monday he was back in Bangkok.

Mr. Thaksin is likely to be in prison when Thais return to the polls, for an election that is expected to be held in the first half of next year.

Muktita Suhartono and Kittiphum Sringammuang contributed reporting.

Related Content