The new Thai government said yesterday it would welcome deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra back to the country but that it would not interfere in the corruption case against him.
Thai Interior Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung said he would even be on hand at the airport to greet Thaksin and urged him to return home as soon as possible.
"It is better that he come back soon. If he came tomorrow or the next couple of days, it would be the best," Chalerm told reporters at the government house before the first Cabinet meeting.
"I will be on hand at the airport to greet him myself and we will protect him," Chalerm told reporters. "I can arrange the best team for him overnight.''
Thaksin's wife, Pojamarn Shinawatra, told a court last month that her husband will return to Thailand as early as April to fight charges in court.
Thaksin and his wife face corruption and conflict of interest charges in connection with her purchase of land bought from a state agency in 2003. Thaksin also faces charges of concealing assets in a separate case.
Thai Justice Minister Sompong Amornwiwat said Thaksin would have to fight charges in court without help from government.
"As the justice minister, I will not interfere in the case," Sompong said. "He has to fight the charges in court."
Thaksin's 2006 downfall came after months of demonstrations demanding he step down because of alleged corruption and abuse of power. Thaksin was abroad at the time he was ousted, and he now lives mostly in London. After his allies won the December elections and since formed the new government, he said he planned to return to Thailand.
Those involved in toppling Thaksin sought to dismantle his political legacy. After the coup, Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party was disbanded by court order. He and his party's other 110-executive members were barred from public office for five years, and Thaksin faces several corruption-related charges.
However, a new party dominated by Thaksin loyalists won the most votes in last month's parliamentary elections, the first since the coup.
On Thursday, Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said Thaksin may get back his diplomatic passport, which had been revoked in January last year.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS