Thailand's ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will face three more corruption charges before the December election, in the latest move by a special anti-graft agency.
The Assets Examination Committee (AEC) is set to file the three charges against Thaksin on the eve of the general election set for December 23, Thai media reported Tuesday.
AEC member Kaesan Athibodhi said the subcommittee investigating the cases reported its findings to an AEC meeting Monday.
The ex-premier will be accused of illegally concealing a controlling stake in telecom group Shin Corporation Plc, then owned by Thaksin's family, when he first became prime minister in 2001. Such an action violates the anti-graft panel's law. If convicted, the couple may face a maximum imprisonment sentence of six years, according to Kaewsan.
The other two charges involve Thaksin's administrative decisions that "caused damage to the country", by changing tax rules that cost two state telecom companies billions of baht, and altering terms of loans with neighboring country Myanmar.
The subcommittee will ask the court to seize 73-billion-baht (2.2 billion U.S dollars) worth of Thaksin's assets in compensation for the wrongdoing, according to Kaewsan.
The AEC has by now ordered a freeze on about 66 billion baht (some two billion dollars) of Thaksin and his family's assets, mostly in local bank accounts.
Thaksin already faces two arrest warrants over two earlier corruption charges. The former premier, who has lived in Britain in a self-imposed exile since ousted in the Sept. 19 military coup last year, has denied any wrongdoing.
It is expected the committee would take two more weeks to wrap up the charges to file with the Attorney General's Office, and then forward them to the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders.
Kaewsan denied that the Committee has accelerated the cases as the general election draws near. "We have just done it under the timeframe set earlier," he said.
The recent public opinion polls have shown the People Power Party, which groups many of Thaksin's allies and former aides, as a front-runner for the December election.
Source:Xinhua
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