THAILAND
The Nation-July 6
The tale of two former prime ministers – one in Thailand, the other in Malaysia – caught in corruption and related crimes following their fall from power should serve as a fresh reminder for all politicians that, in a civil society, no one is above the law.
Thaksin Shinawatra, long estranged from his homeland as a fugitive from justice living in self-imposed exile, is the subject of a fresh arrest warrant. On top of all his other legal entanglements, he is now charged with failing to appear in court in a criminal case involving his alleged abuse of power in facilitating the state-owned Export-Import Bank’s Bt4-billion loan to Myanmar while he was premier in the early 2000s. The warrant, issued by the court earlier this week, is the fifth for Thaksin, who fled the country in 2008. He has previously been summonsed for alleged abuses of power in approving the conversion of a telecom concession into an excise tax to benefit his family’s telecom business, facilitating another multibillion-baht loan granted by state-owned Krung Thai Bank for a real estate group, and helping his former wife buy state-owned property.
Read more at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30349431
First published in: The Nation
