Things look grimmer for Thaksin as abuse case moves forward

This landmark case will go on trial at the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for the Holders of Political Positions. Although Thaksin is no longer living in the country, the court can proceed in his absence because it is technically a civil suit. Thaksin will be at a disadvantage if he fails to appoint a legal team to help him defend the allegations. If the Bt76 billion were to be seized in a court verdict, Thaksin would be significantly poorer, as most of his assets are believed to be inside the country.

In the Ratchadaphisek landpurchase deal, Thaksin's lawyers threw in the towel by deciding against defending Thaksin and wife Pojaman during the final stages of that trial.

This was after Thaksin's decision to skip bail and his claim that he had no faith in the fairness of the judicial system. Pojaman has been sentenced to three years in prison for legal deception and tax evasion.

At the moment, Thaksin's Bt76 billion in cash is deposited in 16 bank accounts here. Of this amount, almost Bt40 billion is deposited at Siam Commercial Bank alone.

The now defunct Assets Examination Committee ordered local banks to freeze the entire proceeds from the Shinawatra family's sale of Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings of Singapore. The Shinawatras sold 49 per cent of Shin Corp to Temasek for Bt73 billion. After deduction of other expenses, they received a net Bt69 billion from this sale. With the Shin Corp dividend payout of more than Bt6 billion, they ended up pocketing Bt76 billion.

This staggering amount of cash was frozen shortly after the military coup in 2006. The AEC was formed to go after the corruption cases against Thaksin and his associates.

In 2001 when Thaksin assumed the office of prime minister, the value of his family's holdings in Shin Corp was between Bt24 billion and Bt26 billion. In January 2006, Thaksin sold his family's stake to Temasek for Bt73 billion. Shin Corp was one of the hottest stocks during the reign of Thaksin because it was in the highgrowth telecom sector and allegedly benefited from "policy corruption" engineered by his government, something public prosecutors will have to prove in court.

The Office of the Attorney General has taken up this corruption case from the AEC. Initially, the AEC felt that it was being betrayed by public prosecutors, who were reluctant to move ahead with the case after having it photocopy more than 100,000 pages of evidence. Then public prosecutors just sat on this evidence.

But the political wind has changed. Public prosecutors are now quite active in proceeding the corruption cases against Thaksin. More than 100 boxes containing more than 200,000 pages of evidence and information against Thaksin were carried in a lorry to the Supreme Court.

The thrust of this corruption case is that Thaksin and Pojaman still owned 49 per cent of Shin Corp stock during the years of Thaksin's premiership. Thaksin and Pojaman were simply using Panthongtae and Pinthongta - two of their children - Bhanapot Damapong, Yingluck Shinawatra and Ample Rich Investment as nominees to cover up the real ownership. Then Thaksin allegedly abused his power by engaging in policy corruption to enhance the stock value of Shin Corp.

If public prosecutors can prove Thaksin and Pojaman concealed their assets through these nominees, then the Supreme Court will automatically hand down a guilty verdict.

The policy corruption allegedly committed by Thaksin includes a change of the excise tax and a revision of cellular mobile telephone licences to benefit Advanced Info Service by Bt70 billion; a change of the roaming service and other fees that benefited AIS by Bt18.97 billion and the Exim Bank loan to Burma that benefited Shin Satellite by Bt593 million.

The other question is how much the state should take from the Shinawatras if they were to be found guilty of corruption? The amount could be Bt76 billion, or more, or less.