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Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was swiftly arrested, taken to court and jailed after he landed back home in Thailand after 15 years in self-imposed exile.<\/p>\n
Thaksin, who made his fortune in the telecommunications business, boarded a private plane in Singapore and landed at Bangkok\u2019s Don Mueang Airport shortly after 9am (02:00 GMT) on Tuesday, according to Thailand\u2019s Khaosod Media and Thai PBS.<\/p>\n
Thaksin paid his respects to the king on his arrival and shortly afterwards was taken in a police convoy to the Supreme Court where he was charged with abuse of power and several other outstanding criminal offences, which he has described as politically motivated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcome back to Thailand daddy,\u201d daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra posted on Instagram beneath a photograph of the family, adding that he had \u201centered the legal process\u201d.<\/p>\n
He was later taken to a Bangkok prison, with the Supreme Court releasing a statement saying he would serve a total of eight years in jail, the Reuters news agency reported.<\/p>\n
Thaksin swept to power in 2001 on a populist platform that appealed to rural Thais who had long been neglected by the country\u2019s ruling elites. He was returned in a landslide five years later but, in September 2006, when Thaksin was in New York preparing to address the United Nations, the military seized power.<\/p>\n
Thaksin, who was also accused of serious human rights abuses amid a violent conflict in the country\u2019s mostly Muslim southern provinces, and a \u2018drugs war\u2019 that left thousands dead, was later convicted of abuse of power and went into exile in 2008, spending most of his time in Dubai.<\/p>\n
Thailand has been beset by political turmoil since the 2006 coup, with pro-Thaksin and rival pro-establishment supporters taking to the streets, amid a cycle of elections and coups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was swiftly arrested, taken to court and jailed after he landed back home in Thailand after 15 years in self-imposed exile. Thaksin, who made his fortune in the telecommunications business, boarded a private plane in Singapore and landed at Bangkok\u2019s Don Mueang Airport shortly after 9am (02:00 GMT) on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":184737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10221280388112155_325455220908133":"","twitter_917774835383787521_917774835383787521":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184736"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184738,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184736\/revisions\/184738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}