Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister of Thailand who is still one of the most powerful politicians in the country, won an important legal victory on Friday, as a court dismissed a case accusing him of insulting the nation’s monarchy.
Mr. Thaksin was indicted last year and was the most high-profile figure to be charged with violating the royal defamation law, which is one of the world’s harshest and has long been used to squash dissent. He faced a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The charges against Mr. Thaksin, 76, were widely seen as politicized, the latest salvo in a decades-long clash for power between him and Thailand’s royalist-military establishment. They stemmed from an interview he gave a decade ago and were filed by a general on behalf of the military junta that was in power at the time.
On Friday, the Criminal Court in Bangkok ruled that Mr. Thaksin’s interview could have been edited in a way that did not fully represent his remarks. It also said that Mr. Thaksin did not specifically mention the monarch at the time.
Dozens of Mr. Thaksin’s supporters, dressed in their trademark red shirts, gathered outside the Criminal Court in Bangkok on Friday morning. After the ruling, Mr. Thaksin smiled and waved at reporters outside the courtroom as he said, “Acquitted!”
But Mr. Thaksin and his family still face legal threats. His daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra was recently suspended as prime minister by a court and could be barred from politics. The verdict in her case is expected on Aug. 29.
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The post Thaksin, Ex-Premier of Thailand, Is Cleared of Insulting Monarchy appeared first on New York Times.
