Thailand ex-PM Thaksin is set for prison release next month after getting parole

BANGKOK (AP) - Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is set to be released from a Bangkok prison next month after a Justice Ministry panel decision to grant him parole, the Corrections Department announced on Wednesday.

The decision to release him from Klong Prem Central Prison on May 11 comes as the 76-year-old Thaksin completes the legally required minimum of two-thirds of his one-year sentence.

His freedom will mark the end of a tangled legal saga that began after Thaksin returned to Thailand from more than a decade of self-imposed exile in 2023. He was sentenced the same year to eight years in prison for abuse of power.

The billionaire telecommunications magnate served as prime minister from 2001 to 2006, when a military coup ousted him. His ouster triggered nearly two decades of deep political polarization, pitting his supporters against opponents. The political machine he founded remains active and influential, though not as popular as it once was.

Although Thaksin's original sentence was commuted to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, he was ordered into a prison cell in September after the Supreme Court ruled that a previous six-month stay in a police hospital did not count as served prison time.

The court found that his stay in a hospital suite was a violation of procedures, as his medical conditions were not serious enough to justify avoiding prison facilities.

He briefly returned in 2008 to face charges but skipped bail and fled abroad again, where he tried to dodge a barrage of lawsuits and criminal charges he claimed were politically motivated.

The Justice Ministry panel agreed on Wednesday to grant him parole as part of a review of several hundred eligible prisoners' cases. In Thaksin's case, they took into account his good behavior in prison and the low risk that he would repeat his offense, as well as his age. After his release, he will be on probation for four months, during which he must reside at his declared home in Bangkok and report regularly to probation officials.