BANGKOK, Thailand: Thailand’s jailed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has left the hospital where he spent six months in detention following his return to the kingdom after more than 15 years of self-imposed exile.
Early on Sundy, Thaksin was seen wearing a neck brace and a surgical mask in a vehicle leaving the Police General Hospital in central Bangkok.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said earlier this week that Thaksin, who was jailed for eight years on corruption charges before his sentence was reduced to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, would be released on parole.
The exact details of Thaksin’s parole are unclear, but the return of his Pheu Thai party to power in a coalition with the pro-military Palang Pracharath and United Thai Nation has fueled rumours of a backroom deal to reduce his time in jail.
Thaksin, a towering but divisive presence in Thai politics for more than two decades, led Thailand between 2001 and 2006 when his government was toppled in a military coup.
After convictions for abuse of power and other offences as prime minister, Thaksin spent nearly 16 years in self-exile overseas before returning the country in August last year to cheering crowds to serve his sentence.
Within house of his return, Thaksin was moved from prison to the police hospital to receive treatment for unspecified health issues.
Even after he fled the country in 2008, Thaksin’s allies continued to be a major force in Thai politics, with his sister Yingluck Shinawatra serving as the country’s first female prime minister from 2011 until 2014.
Thaksin’s parole caps a period of reconciliation between his populist movement and the country’s conservative, royalist establishment, which have been locked in a heated rivalry that has consumed Thai politics for decades.
The former telecoms tycoon was also accused of serious human rights abuses amid a violent conflict in the country’s Muslim dominated southern provinces and a “drugs war”, that killed thousands.
