By Thai Newsroom Reporters
AN INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE UNDER the National Anti-Corruption Commission has been intensely lobbied and pressed to waive an historic case of de facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra’s alleged fake-out at Police Hospital, according to a partisan source.
For fear of not only involving the billionaire power player, previously officially viewed as a convict at large who had allegedly feigned “critical illnesses” at the hospital for a six-month period until he was released on parole earlier this year, but also certain high-level government officials in charge, the historic case could possibly be lifted due to “lack of significant evidence”, the partisan source said.
The possible waiver of the case against Thaksin, father of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, and high-level government officials has been tenaciously sought under the ongoing lobbying quietly mounted by an unidentified, influential person closely connected with the Pheu Thai-led government, the partisan source said.
In particular, Ekawit Wachawalkhu, representative of the Supreme Court who had earlier acted as vice chair of a now-defunct, fact-finding subcommittee under the anti-graft agency, had been quietly pressed to withdraw himself from the NACC investigating committee on which he is currently sitting.
The panel is largely speculated to submit results of their probe into Thaksin’s fake-out allegations to the NACC next month with the likelihood of the case being destined for the Supreme Court where judges in charge of criminal lawsuits against persons with political positions may handle it.
Allegedly involved in the compromise of legal loopholes pertaining to detention of convicts outside of a prison and the grant of undue privileges for the de facto Pheu Thai boss at Police Hospital are Justice Minister Thavee Sodsong as well as chiefs of the Corrections Department, Bangkok Remand prison and Police Hospital, among other high-ranking government officials.
Thaksin who had spent 17 years as a globetrotter in self-exile until he returned home last year had been previously found guilty of power abuse charges and sentenced in absentia to eight years in jail which had been curtailed by royal pardon to only one year.
Nevertheless, the then convict at large had allegedly staged the thinly-veiled fake-out for “critical illnesses” the symptoms and medical treatments of which had been shrouded in secrecy to the extent that he had kept himself from literally spending a single day behind bars in the Bangkok prison but instead been allowed to stay in a private ward of Police Hospital.
If finally ruled as guilty by court, the de facto Pheu Thai boss could possibly be returned to prison whilst those high-level government officials could possibly be sentenced individually to jail terms on power abuse and misconduct charges.
CAPTION:
Top and Front Page: De facto Pheu Thai boss Thaksin Shinawatra at a campaign rally for a local election in Chiang Mai yesterday, Dec. 24, 2024. Photos: Thai Rath
Also read: PM urged to dissolve House due to fiasco over high power rates
Pheu Thai-led govt likely to survive four-year term: Thaksin
4 youths bash up, rob elderly Belgian man in Pattaya
Cabinet approves handouts, minimum wage increase and tax breaks, PM says
60km an hour speed limit kicks off on almost all Bangkok roads
Expressway tolls waived for eight days during New Year
