Image source, Getty Images
- author, Jonathan Head
- role, Southeast Asia Correspondent
- Reported by Bangkok, Thailand
Thailand’s former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, will be charged with insulting the monarchy, the country’s attorney-general has said.
The controversial political leader, who returned to Thailand last year after 15 years in exile, is facing charges over an interview he gave to a South Korean newspaper nine years ago.
He is the most prominent person to be prosecuted under Thailand’s notorious lese majeste law, which is applied broadly against political dissidents.
Hundreds of people have been indicted in the past four years alone.
Thaksin Shinawatra’s return to Thailand last year appeared to mark an end to a bitter political feud between his family and conservative groups who fear his populist leadership style.
In what seemed like a big deal at first glance, his party was allowed to form a coalition government with some of its political rivals to keep out En Marche, the young reform party that won the most votes and seats in the 2023 elections.
But the decision to charge the 74-year-old former prime minister with strict lèse majesté laws shows he still has enemies within Thailand’s powerful royalist establishment.
The charges relate to an interview he gave to a South Korean newspaper in 2015 while in exile.
In the article, he accused the Privy Council, the king’s top advisory body, of helping to engineer the 2014 military coup that toppled the government led by his sister, Yingluck.
Yingluck Shinawatra was elected in the 2011 general election and led Thailand for three years before being ousted in a coup.
The Privy Council is not technically subject to lèse majesté laws, but in recent times these have often been interpreted broadly to cover any opinion that could reflect negatively on the monarchy.
More than 270 people have been charged under the law since mass protests four years ago that faced unprecedented public criticism of the monarchy.
Thaksin’s legal team says they are confident they can defend him in court, but his trial is likely to take a long time and the indictment may force him to limit his political ambitions.
