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Published on August 3, 2007

Noppadon Pattama, legal adviser to the Shinawatra family, said Pojaman would have her lawyer file a lawsuit in the Civil Court over the AEC's freeze on her bank accounts pending investigation into alleged wrongdoing and corruption by the deposed prime minister, his immediate family and relatives.

Noppadon said yesterday that Pojaman's assets, amounting to Bt4 billion in 2001 and Bt2.5 billion in 2005, had been reported to the National Counter Corruption Commission well before Thaksin became prime minister.

Pojaman's wealth was not acquired as a result of Thaksin's premiership, the legal adviser said.

Noppadon said the AEC had applied double standards in dealing with Thaksin and his family to cause them undue damage, and failed to strictly follow the established rules of law governing the NCCC Act and the Anti-Money-Laundering Office Act.

Thaksin on July 19 filed a civil lawsuit against the AEC that also demanded Bt50 billion in damages over the freezing of his assets. Noppadon had said then that Pojaman, their children Panthongtae and Pinthongta, and Thaksin's brother-in-law Bhanapot Damapong would file similar lawsuits separately against the AEC for freezing their bank accounts.

Meanwhile, AEC spokesman Sak Korsaengruang said there was solid evidence against Thaksin in the Export-Import Bank of Thailand's loan to Burma, and that the subcommittee probing the deal would wrap up its investigation by September. "It will not take long to wrap up the case because there is only one suspect," he said.

The AEC on Wednesday authorised the subcommittee to indict Thaksin for alleged graft and abuse of power relating to a government-sanctioned loan to Burma in 2004.

The Thaksin government in 2004 approved a Bt4-billion credit line at 3-per-cent interest for Burma to improve its infrastructure and telecom sector.

The condition for the loan, to be repaid in 12 years, was that Burma purchase material from Thai telecom equipment suppliers. Appro-val of the credit line was said to favour Shin Satellite, the firm then partly owned by Thaksin's family, because Burma chose ShinSat as a major supplier for its Bt600-million broadband satellite project.