For my English-speaking friends,
here's a piece in the International Herald Tribune about Thaksin's run from justice to England.
An excerpt:
...Thaksin bought his popularity and the support of the rural poor in Thailand. He purchased or intimidated media outlets. He countenanced extra-judicial assassinations as a tool for waging a highly publicized war on drugs while leaving alone the drug lords in neighboring Burma, who are the source of that trade. He provoked popular protest when he sold his family's 49 percent share in the Shin telecommunications company for $1.9 billion to a Singaporean company and claimed exemption from any capital gains tax. And he is currently fleeing charges that he used his power to secure insider deals on real-estate purchases for family members....
... Six months after returning from exile in triumph, Thailand's former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra fled to London on Aug. 11, the same day that the former Thai leader and his wife were due to face corruption charges in Thailand's courts....
...In July, three of Thaksin's lawyers were sentenced to six months in jail for attempting to bribe officers at the Constitutional Court. Soon after, Thaksin's wife Pojaman, her secretary and her brother were convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to three years in jail. They were released on bail and are appealing the case...
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