By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DE FACTO PHEU THAI BOSS Thaksin Shinawatra may be immediately thrown in jail if the Criminal Court denies him release on bail tomorrow (June 18), confirmed Corrections Department director-general Sahakarn Petchnarin today.
Charged with a violation of the lese majeste law, also known as Section 112 of the Criminal Code, Thaksin is scheduled to be brought by the Office of the Attorney-General before the Criminal Court tomorrow and he will certainly be put behind bars at Bangkok Remand prison if denied release on bail, the department chief said.
Sahakarn said the Corrections Department’s planned regulations for detainment of any convicts outside of a prison were not effective yet and that Thaksin will by no means enjoy such privileges.
It remains to be seen whether the Criminal Court will grant the former prime minister/now de facto Pheu Thai boss release on bail, given a previous event in which he had escaped a court verdict which had been read out in his absentia for a few counts of power abuse leading to an original sentence of eight years in jail which had been curtailed by royal pardon to one year.
Nevertheless, Thaksin had never literally spent a single day behind bars since he returned from self-exile abroad last August to otherwise serve his jail term but had been granted the contentious double-standard privileges of staying in a private ward at Police Hospital for six months until he was granted parole last February.
Sahakarn said the current parole for the de facto Pheu Thai boss is completely irrelevant to tomorrow’s court decision as to whether he will be granted release on bail, which practically involves a separate lawsuit.
Thaksin has been charged with breaching the draconian lese majeste law after he had mentioned the monarchy in alleged connection with the 2006 coup which ousted him from elected premiership during an interview with a news agency in Seoul nearly a decade later.
However, the 2014 coup junta headed by then-army chief-turned-prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha who had deposed his sister Yingluck Shinawatra from elected premiership had filed the lese majeste case against him.
CAPTION:
Corrections Department director-general Sahakarn Petchnarin, left, and de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra, right. Photo: Thai Rath
Also read: PM infected with Covid-19, returning to work on Wednesday
Analysis: Of a slap-and-kiss relationship
Thammanat shrugs off strained ties between Pheu Thai and Palang Pracharath
Contraband oil, many crew members missing from seized boats
3,000 candidates reach national-level senatorial election
Thai-Khmer deal around Kood Island alleged as null and void
Airplane makes emergency landing at U Tapao Airport after landing gear problem
