By Thai Newsroom Reporters
MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE Committee on Police Affairs are scheduled to see on Friday whether de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict at large Thaksin Shinawatra may have been given more privileges than others at Police Hospital.
House committee chair Chaichana Dejdecho confirmed today (Jan.10) that he and other members of his panel are asking for a brief visit to the “sickly” Thaksin alongside other convicts currently admitted for medical treatment at Police Hospital and see if the de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict at large may have been allegedly given excessive privileges, unprovided for others.
The House committee chair said Police Hospital has already given him and his fellow committee members permission to visit the deposed prime minister and other convicts at the hospital on the upcoming Friday whilst the Corrections Department which is directly in charge of Thaksin’s case has not yet given a response.
The House committee members have apparently intended to see the “sickly” Thaksin in person since he was admitted in a tight-security, private ward at Police Hospital and has been staying there for four and a half months now but it will eventually depend on the doctors in charge to decide if the visitors can do so as planned, the House committee chair said.
Chaichana, concurrently a Democrat MP, admitted that the visitors might not only be denied to see the “sickly” Thaksin in person but fail to be informed of any details or symptoms of his secrecy-shrouded “illnesses” due to the patient’s privacy reasons.
Given the fact that medical expenses of the “sickly” Thaksin have been primarily covered by taxpayers’ money provided by the National Health Security Office, visitors are obliged to find out more truthful details about that, he said.
According to the House committee chair, the visiting MPs are yet to find out one way or another whether the de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict may have feigned it all as alleged by his critics only to flout the country’s judicial process and keep himself away from Bangkok Remand Prison where he would have otherwise served a curtailed, one-year jail sentence for court conviction of a few counts of misconduct perpetrated during his previous rule nearly a couple of decades earlier.
The deposed prime minister never spent a single day behind bars and was alleged to have manipulated to keep himself a free man since he returned from self-exile abroad last August.
In another development, the so-called Students’ and People’s Network for Democracy called on the National Anti-Corruption Commission to speed up investigation into scandals over the handling of Thaksin’s case by the Corrections Department and Police Hospital.
The political activists who had earlier petitioned the NACC for the fact-finding probe said executive officials of the anti-graft agency and the hospital could possibly face duty-negligence charges if they failed to publicly divulge the truth behind the handling of the de facto Pheu Thai boss-cum-convict at large.
CAPTIONS:
Top: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra with his daughter and Pheu Thai leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Photo: Thai Rath
Insert: House Committee on Police Affairs chair Chaichana Dejdecho. Photo Thai Rath
Front Page: An image of Thaksin Shinawatra overlaid on Police Hospital building. Photo: Matichon
Also read: Somsak, Suriya have not yet called it quits as Pheu Thai MPs
Official papers to justify Thaksin’s extended stay out jail due this week
Srettha tipped to run country at least throughout this year: NIDA Poll
2 Thai Sang Thai executive members quit over MPs’ revolt
Myanmar navy chief removed in surprise transfer
Navy not lobbying ministers over Chinese submarine: Suthin
Thai tourism needs to learn the lessons of history
One Reply to “House Panel to check if Thaksin got more privileges than others at hospital”