Thailand's influential former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is back in prison after the Supreme Court ruled his time in hospital detention was an attempt to avoid jail, a major blow for a powerful family that has dominated politics for two decades.

The polarising billionaire had spent only a few hours in prison upon his return from 15 years of self-exile in August 2023 before he was hospitalised after complaining of heart trouble and chest pains, prompting widespread scepticism and public outrage.

His eight-year sentence for conflicts of interest and abuse of power while premier from 2001 to 2006 was commuted to one year by the king and Thaksin was released on parole after just six months of detention, the entirety of which he had spent in the VIP wing of a hospital.

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