BANGKOK: Thailand’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to serve one year in prison, marking another significant setback for the influential Shinawatra family, which has dominated Thai politics for two decades. The court ruled that Thaksin must serve the jail time he previously avoided while under hospital detention.
Police were expected to take Thaksin into custody, according to a Reuters reporter present at the verdict, though he had not yet left the courthouse.
After returning from 15 years of self-imposed exile in 2023, Thaksin spent only a few hours in prison before being transferred to a hospital due to heart issues and chest pains—a move that drew public skepticism and outrage. His original eight-year sentence for conflicts of interest and abuse of power had been reduced to one year by the king, and he was released on parole after six months, all of which he served in the VIP section of a hospital.
Thaksin now faces a period of political reckoning following the recent ousting of his daughter and protégé, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, from the prime ministership by a court—making her the sixth Shinawatra-linked premier removed by the judiciary or military. In the days that followed, Paetongtarn’s government collapsed on Friday after being outmaneuvered by rival Anutin Charnvirakul, who was elected prime minister in a decisive defeat for Thaksin’s once-dominant Pheu Thai party.
Dressed in a suit and yellow tie, the color symbolizing the Thai monarchy, Thaksin arrived at the court with his family, greeting hundreds of journalists outside. About a dozen of his red-shirted supporters held his picture and handwritten placards nearby.
