Thaksin finally free in homeland

Home at last: Thaksin arriving at his family compound after he was released from a police hospital in Bangkok. — AFP

Billionaire former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was released on parole after six months in detention, his first day of freedom in his homeland 15 years after fleeing in the wake of his overthrow in a military coup.

Thailand’s best-known and most polarising premier, the influential Thaksin has loomed large over politics during the years spent mostly in self-imposed exile to dodge jail for abuse of power, charges he maintained were cooked up by the country’s old guard to keep him at bay.