Court acquits Thaksin Shinawatra in royal insult case

A Bangkok court acquitted the controversial billionaire and former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, accused of insulting the monarchy.

Accusation of an interview with a South Korean newspaper ten years ago. If he was convicted, he was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

Thailand’s Lese Majeste law prohibits insulting the monarchy. However, critics say it is used to target activists and political opponents.

The decision came with Thaksin’s daughter, Prime Minister Paetongarn’ı suspended, whether or not to be removed from the decision of a Constitutional Court was faced with the decision. These lawsuits pose a threat to Shinawatra clan, a dominant force in Thai politics for decades.

Friday’s decision brought some relief to the family and supporters.

Winyat Charmontree, a lawyer who moves for Thaksin, told reporters that the decision was read in court after his client smiled and thanked his lawyers. He also said that he could now work for the benefit of the country.

The accusation against Thaksin was opened in 2016 within the scope of the military government in 2016 and re -activated last year after returning to Thailand.

At first glance, the case against him seemed weak.

In an interview with the South Korean newspaper, the former Prime Minister said he believed that he was initiated by his sister Yingluck’s elected government – just as dismissed by a previous coup in 2006 by a 19 -member organ, who advised the King of Thailand.

Technically, the Special Council is not only within the scope of the Lese Majeste Law, which states that it is a crime to scribble only the king, the queen, the heir of the throne, or a naip.

In recent years, however, the law has been called to blame any action or expression that may negatively reflect on the monarchy as an institution.

In the past, people were prosecuted for making negative comments about the deceased King Bhumibol’s dog and the King of Thailand from the 16th century.

More recently, a young woman was sentenced to five years in prison for placing a poster criticizing the budget to help those who were affected by Covid to the portrait of King Vajiralongkorn.

The interpretation of the law has become so wide that human rights groups see it as a political tool that can be used to scare and silence those who challenge the status quo.

Many of them believed that there was something for Thaksin.

However, the judges chose to fully interpret the statements of the law and said the defendant should be acquitted because it was not called the name.

This decision comes exactly two years after the former Prime Minister’s 15 -year exile.

Assuming that there has been a major bargaining between Thaksin and its conservative competitors for a long time, Pheu Thai, the second number of its usual number in the 2023 elections, can form a coalition government and really hold young reformers who earn elections from power.

The conditions of this bargaining were never explained to the public – Thaksin insisted that there was no agreement – but they contained an agreement that would keep a low profile and stay away from politics.

But it is a completely alien to the low -profile, flashy, rich and ambitious king.

He is still believed to be the biggest financing of Pheu Thai and makes all the main decisions for the party.

When the first prime minister businessman Srettha Thavisin was disqualified by the Constitutional Constitutional Court a year ago, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksin’s inexperienced daughter, became the youngest prime minister of Thailand.

He said he would happily get his advice. While taking office, Mr. Thaksin announced his “vision for Thailand”, including a controversial offer to legalize casinos; Most of them later became an official policy.

The parliamentary opposition accused the Shinawatra family of “bilateral leadership”. Thaksin’s business ties with the powerful Cambodian man Hun Sen created concerns how strictly his government would defend Thailand about the border dispute between the two countries.

This came to a head in a special phone conversation that criticized his own army commander at the border that would decide whether Paetongarn was heard to him as a “uncle” and criticized his own army commander at the border, and whether he was now dismissed within a week.

Only a year later, losing another prime minister during a major global uncertainty can be considered as risky. It is not clear who will replace Paetongarn.

Thaksin faced another court case next month, transferring it to a hospital for the previous prison sentence. The cost of allowing him to stay away from imprisonment may be at a time when his party should call an early election, and that his bad performance in the government could lose most of his seats in Parliament.