BANGKOK — Thailand's Supreme Court said former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra must serve a one-year prison term for previous convictions on graft and abuse of power charges, after investigating whether officials had mishandled his return to Thailand in 2023 to begin serving the sentences.
A judge said that the enforcement of Thaksin's penalty was not done properly, and therefore his detention in a police hospital did not count as serving prison time.
Following his return to Thailand after more than a decade of living in self-exile, Thaksin was sent to a suite at Bangkok's Police General Hospital, reportedly for medical reasons, after spending less than a day in prison.
His eight-year sentence was then commuted to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, and he was released on parole aft