SINGAPORE: Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has landed in Singapore for a “health check-up”, Thai media reported Monday Sept 8, a day before Thailand’s Supreme Court is due to rule on his hospital detention.
He told news website Thai Enquirer that he will return to Bangkok in the evening of Sept 8.
On Sept 5, Thaksin, 76, flew out of Thailand, hours ahead of a Parliament vote confirming tycoon Anutin Charnvirakul as prime minister, replacing Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksin’s daughter.
Thaksin said at the time that he was headed to Singapore for a checkup. However, he wrote on his X account later in the day that Thai officials had delayed his departure for nearly two hours, preventing his jet from landing at Singapore’s Seletar Airport before it closed operations for the evening.
His jet then turned around over Malaysia, diverting to Dubai, according to tracker Flightradar24.
“Since I couldn’t land in Singapore, I decided to have the pilot change my plan (and fly) to Dubai,” he wrote in Thai on X.
He added that he would visit his friends in Dubai and orthopaedic and pulmonary doctors who have treated him before.
“I intend to return to Thailand no later than the 8th to travel to court myself on Sept 9,” he said.
The Supreme Court will decide whether his six months in hospital detention prior to his release on parole in 2024 can be counted towards his jail term for abuse of power and conflicts of interest.
He could potentially be made to serve the time in prison.
Thaksin had been sentenced to eight years in jail, later reduced to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn. However, he did not spend a single night in jail and was instead transferred to the VIP wing of a police hospital on medical grounds.
In August, he was acquitted in a separate case of breaching Thailand’s strict royal defamation laws, prompting a ban on his overseas travel to be lifted.
Paetongtarn was sacked in August by court order over her conduct during a border row with neighbouring Cambodia.
Thailand’s Constitutional Court found on Aug 29 that her conduct had breached ministerial ethics and fired her after only a year in power. - The Straits Times/ANN
