Thailand’s King has reduced the eight-year prison sentence of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to a year.
Mr Thaksin, who returned home last month after 15 years of self-imposed exile, was immediately sent to jail.
He was then moved to the luxury wing of a state hospital after complaining of heart problems.
Mr Thaksin had previously said the outstanding sentences, over charges of corruption and abuse of power, were politically motivated.
Deposed by a military coup in 2006, Mr Thaksin, one of Thailand’s most influential and polarising personalities, left the country two years later to avoid a prison sentence.
His return on 22 August was assumed to be part of a wider political deal. And it was one that was meant to bring his popular Pheu Thai party together with its one-time adversaries in a compromise government.
And it did that. Hours after he arrived, a new coalition government, led by Pheu Thai, voted its candidate Srettha Thavisin as the new PM. The coalition includes Mr Thaksin’s former military rivals who deposed his party in 2014 in a coup.
(BBC News)
