Investigators have failed to uncover solid evidence of corruption by ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the country's coup leader said yesterday, undermining the main rationale for the takeover.
General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, however, advised Thaksin against returning in the near future and warned the military was on the alert for any risk of a counter-coup by his supporters.
"It will be difficult to implicate him" in major corruption cases, Sonthi told the Nation newspaper.
"I am not sure how far the Office of the Auditor General can investigate suspected corruption cases involving him. They might get nowhere at all," he said.
"We cannot impound the money he made with accountable legal evidence, but can only look for some possible hidden [evidence] with questionable background," the daily quoted him as saying.
Sonthi has repeatedly justified the bloodless Sept. 19 coup by saying widespread corruption during Thaksin's five years in office had undermined democracy.
He quickly revived the nation's dormant corruption watchdogs and set up his own high-powered team of investigators to look into graft allegations against Thaksin.
"Under the previous government, widespread corruption was evident. The administration was plagued by irregularities," he said.
But Sonthi acknowledged the military could lose the public support it has generally enjoyed since the coup if nothing emerged to back up specific corruption claims.
"We have tried to abide by the law and take all parties' concerns into account," Sonthi was quoted as saying by the paper.
"For example, the international community is watching to see whether human rights and civil liberties are being violated" during the corruption probes, he said.
"I know how the people feel. I guess I feel the same way when I watch soccer. I am always frustrated when waiting for my team to score and feel like getting on the field and playing myself," he said.
Political science lecturer Sombat Chantawong said he did not know why Sonthi made the comments before the anti-graft bodies had completed their investigations.
"The coup group needs to prove that their reasons are true, otherwise they will be in trouble," he said. "Otherwise the coup leaders only ousted the government to take power."
Sonthi also told the Nation that the military was on guard for a possible counter-coup movement, and warned Thaksin not to try to return home yet.
"If he's really concerned about the country, he shouldn't try to come back at present," Sonthi was quoted as saying.
"For people who used to have so much and lose it so swiftly, it's hard to come to terms with that, and they may do everything necessary to get it all back," he said.
Thaksin was in New York when the coup occurred, and has stayed in exile in London since.
His wife, Pojaman, had gone to meet him, but has since returned to Thailand.
She spent 15 minutes early yesterday meeting former prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda, a top adviser to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Prem told her that Thaksin should accept his fate, according to a general who attended the meeting.
"He also asked Khunying [Pojaman] to tell Thaksin to accept the situation, that he has lost power, that it would have happened one day anyway, and asked Thaksin to be strong and be patient," General Oud Beungbon told reporters.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
RSS