{"id":6715,"date":"2023-08-31T19:13:28","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T14:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=6715"},"modified":"2023-08-31T19:13:29","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T14:13:29","slug":"thai-ex-pm-thaksin-applies-for-royal-pardon-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/news\/thai-ex-pm-thaksin-applies-for-royal-pardon-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Thai ex-PM Thaksin applies for royal pardon: minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thailand’s jailed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has requested a royal pardon, a government minister said Thursday, as rumours of a backroom deal for clemency swirl.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 74-year-old billionaire, twice elected PM and ousted in a 2006 military coup, was sent to prison last week immediately after returning to the kingdom from 15 years of self-exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His homecoming coincided with his Pheu Thai party returning to government in alliance with several pro-military parties, sparking widespread speculation that an agreement had been struck to cut his jail time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caretaker justice minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said Thaksin had applied for a pardon from the eight-year jail term he is serving for convictions for graft and abuse of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have received (the request), the rest will be according to the procedure,” Wissanu told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked how long the process would take, Wissanu said: “It is purely based on royal grace. The procedure from the government is not long, but it depends on the length of (the king’s) consideration.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Thai law, prisoners can submit a pardon application that is passed from the justice minister through the prime minister to the privy council before going to King Maha Vajiralongkorn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials say the process takes one to two months, if all the paperwork is in order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On landing in Bangkok last week, Thaksin’s first public act was to prostrate himself in homage before a portrait of the king at the airport.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thailand’s jailed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has requested a royal pardon, a government minister said Thursday, as rumours of a backroom deal for clemency swirl. The 74-year-old billionaire, twice elected PM and ousted in a 2006 military coup, was sent to prison last week immediately after returning to the kingdom from 15 years of […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,342,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}