Former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who fled the country seven years ago, can return home whenever she wants as long as she is willing to face legal prosecution, former deputy prime minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said on Tuesday.
The legal expert who has advised numerous governments was responding to questions from the media about the likelihood of Yingluck following in the footsteps of her older brother sometime in the next few months.
Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra came back to Thailand after 15 years of exile abroad on Aug 22 last year, submitted to the legal process and was released on parole in February this year.
Speculation is mounting that Yingluck’s return is now on the horizon. For a start, a new Department of Corrections regulation regarding out-of-prison detention appears to have been tailor-made for the fugitive former premier. The Ministry of Justice has dismissed that claim, however.
Nikkei Asia last month published an interview with Thaksin in which he said his sister should be able to return around the Songkran festival next April.
He was quoted as saying he did not see any obstacles to her return.
Yingluck fled the country in 2017 just before the Supreme Court sentenced her to five years in jail for failing to stop corruption-plagued rice sales, one of the country’s biggest graft cases valued at hundreds of billions of baht.
According to Mr Wissanu, Yingluck will have to follow the standard procedure, with which Thaksin complied upon returning last year. He first reported to the court, then went to jail and petitioned successfully for a royal pardon.
Thaksin never spent a night behind bars, however. Within hours of his admission to prison he was taken to Police General Hospital, where he resided for six months before he was released on parole. He paid all the costs of his stay, including the room that cost 8,500 baht a night, a parliamentary inquiry was told recently.
Mr Wissanu said he personally witnessed Thaksin being jailed on the day he arrived. Even though the detention room might not look like a typical cell with metal bars, it still counts as a prison, he said.
Thaksin would have been detained there until his sentence ended, had he not become ill, he said.
Corrections authorities have declined to discuss details about Thaksin’s health or the treatments he received at the police hospital. The 75-year-old has appeared to be in robust good health since his release.
Mr Wissanu said he had never heard of Yingluck, who is 57 and spends most of her time in London, suffering any serious health problems.
“If she comes back and is willing to go to jail, there shouldn’t be any problem. And she will possibly have to petition for a royal pardon, which is something I shouldn’t be giving an opinion on,” he said.
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