.png)
German (DE) 
English (US) 
Spanish (ES) 
French (FR) 
Hindi (IN) 
Italian (IT) 
Russian (RU) 
9 hours ago
2
Asia Pacific|Thaksin, Former Thai Premier, Cleared of Insulting Nation’s Monarchy
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/world/asia/thailand-thaksin-royal-insult.html
But the reprieve for Thaksin Shinawatra, who remains a political force, did not mean that the legal troubles for him and his family were over.
Aug. 21, 2025
Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister of Thailand who is still one of the most powerful politicians in the country, won an important legal victory on Friday, as a court dismissed a case accusing him of insulting the nation’s monarchy.
Mr. Thaksin was indicted last year and was the most high-profile figure to be charged with violating the royal defamation law, which is one of the world’s harshest and has long been used to squash dissent. He faced a maximum sentence of 15 years.
The charges against Mr. Thaksin, 76, were widely seen as politicized, the latest salvo in a decades long clash for power between him and Thailand’s royalist-military establishment. Dozens of Mr. Thaksin’s supporters, dressed in their trademark red shirts, gathered outside the Criminal Court in Bangkok on Friday morning. After the ruling, Mr. Thaksin stepped outside the courtroom, said the case had been dismissed and swiftly left the premises.
Mr. Thaksin, a charismatic telecom billionaire, galvanized rural voters with populist policies that brought him into the prime minister’s office in 2001. He was ousted in a coup five years later and eventually fled Thailand but remained a force in Thai politics. His sister Yingluck Shinawatra was elected prime minister in 2011, only to be removed in another coup, in 2014.
Image
The next year, Mr. Thaksin told the Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, that a “palace circle” helped engineer the coup that deposed his sister. The defamation case against him stemmed from this interview, but Mr. Thaksin, who was then living in Dubai, was out of the Thai authorities’ reach.
Even in his absence, political parties linked to Mr. Thaksin consistently won the most votes in national elections in Thailand. The streak was broken in 2023, when the progressive Move Forward Party clinched a surprise victory.
That same year, Mr. Thaksin made a dramatic return to Thailand, a move many viewed as part of a deal between him and the old guard to keep Move Forward out of power. Mr. Thaksin’s Pheu Thai Party then formed the next government. And the king pardoned Mr. Thaksin, who had been convicted on charges of corruption and abuse of power and sentenced to eight years in prison. He did not spend a single day behind bars.
But in June last year, Mr. Thaksin was indicted over the defamation charges, which analysts saw as evidence of the establishment’s leverage over him. He was also separately charged with violating the Computer Crime Act for the interview with Chosun Ilbo because it was disseminated online.
While Mr. Thaksin has beaten those charges, he and his family still face legal threats. His daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra was recently suspended as prime minister by a court and could be barred from politics. Mr. Thaksin himself is under scrutiny for a six-month detention in a V.I.P. hospital suite, which critics say helped him avoid spending time in prison.
Sui-Lee Wee is the Southeast Asia bureau chief for The Times, overseeing coverage of 11 countries in the region.
Comments