Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra warned coup-makers that they could still face the death sentence in the future.
He also said that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha is a dictator, one who is increasingly disconnected from reality.
“I believe that one day we will have our own constitution. And according to the principle of law, retrospective punishment is not doable, but this government is using retrospective law against me, so I would like to warn them of a returning sword where all coup-makers will eventually face the death penalty,” Thaksin said during a Clubhouse session on Tuesday night.
His comments came two days after the anniversary of the 2014 military coup, an event that toppled his sister Yingluck’s government and ousted her as premier.
Thaksin is wanted for various charges, including corruption, and royal insult charges which were brought up against him after a separate military coup in 2006. He then was forced to flee the country in 2008, fearing further legal repercussions and threats to his safety.
In 2008, Thaksin was sentenced to two years in prison for a corrupt land deal that helped his wife buy land from a state agency at a reduced price.
In 2019, he was sentenced to two years in jail for mishandling a state lottery scheme that he launched in 2003. Then he was sentenced to three more years in prison in another case for ordering the Export-Import Bank on a controversial loan to Myanmar in 2004.
He also faced allegations of illegally holding shares in the state’s phone concessionaires, with penalties of up to five years in prison.
Critics of Thaksin say he is currently looking to install his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra as a prime minister candidate for the main opposition, Pheu Thai Party, at the upcoming general election in order to pave a way for him to return from self-exile.
Thaksin also commented against Prayut’s reaction to the latest gubernatorial election in Bangkok in which he shrugged off Chadchart Sittipunt’s and Pheu Thai’s success as non-threatening to his leadership.
Pheu Thai won 19 out of 50 seats in the Bangkok couincil while the ruling Palang Pracharath Party only won two seats.
“Even though other provinces are not like Bangkok, the tremor will definitely reverberate throughout the country,” Thaksin said.
“Saying that the results of the election do not reflect anything is like running away from reality…and the more a dictator a person becomes, the more he will turn his back on reality.”