Don’t politicise Thaksin’s ailing health, insists Phumtham
Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai on Thursday insisted that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is eligible to receive medical treatment outside the prison due to his ailing heath, and called on his opponents not to politicise it.
Phumtham added that recently announced regulations and criteria for detaining inmates at their homes were not created specifically for Thaksin, but rather the policy was years old.
Phumtham, who is also the commerce minister, was responding to criticism that the Pheu Thai-led government had helped Thaksin, the Pheu Thai patriarch, avoid being jailed for even a single day. The critics allege that newly announced Corrections Department regulations were aimed at allowing Thaksin to complete his jail term at home if he was soon discharged from the Police Hospital.
Thaksin returned to Thailand on August 22 after 15 years in exile, to serve jail terms related to corruption and abuse of authority while he was the prime minister leading up to the 2006 coup.
On the evening of the very first day that the 74-year-old landed in Thailand and was sent to jail to serve his eight-year imprisonment, he was sent from Bangkok Remand Prison to the Police General Hospital. The prison chief claimed his health had deteriorated to a worrying condition.
Thaksin pleaded for a royal clemency from his hospital bed and His Majesty commuted his jail term to one year on grounds that the former prime minister had done a lot of good deeds for the nation. With one year of imprisonment remaining, Thaksin is eligible to seek approval to be detained at home for the rest of the term.
Phumtham was formerly a close aide to Thaksin in the Thai Rak Thai Party and at Shincorp Group. He said that now that Thaksin has remained in hospital for over 120 days, his doctors must inform the Corrections Department as to whether he continues to need treatment there or alternatively could be sent back to prison. If Thaksin requires further treatment, the justice minister is required to issue an order to allow it.
“I don’t know details of the treatment, but I affirm here that everything is being done under the current regulations,” Phumtham said.
He said the policy to reduce overcrowding in the prison system was initiated prior to the tenure of the Prayut Chan-o-cha government, and the Prayut administration had made preparations leading to the regulations being announced during the tenure of the current government.
“The policy was initiated in 2017 with a goal to make prisons less crammed,” Phumtham said. “I don’t want this to become politicised.”
He said it would depend solely on the opinions of doctors as to whether Thaksin should remain under treatment at the Police Hospital.
“Please leave this out of politics. If we involve everything in politics, our country can’t move on,” Phumtham said.
He said there was no double standard in Thaksin receiving such treatment because he had returned to serve his jail term, but his poor health and old age had prompted doctors to decide to treat him outside the prison.
On December 14, the House committee on police affairs chair, Democrat MP Chaichana Dejdecho, said it would in January visit Police General Hospital to see proof that Thaksin is really there.
Under the regulation, prisoners allowed to be detained outside prison must meet certain criteria set by the Corrections Department and to be categorised by a screening panel set up by the department.
On Thursday, Democrat Party spokesman Rames Ratanachaweng said Somsak’s statement was not unexpected as the opposition viewed the new regulation as being enacted to help Thaksin.
Meanwhile, the House committee on police affairs invited Somsak and other relevant officials to testify over Thaksin’s treatment at the police hospital.
Speaking to reporters before the hearing, Chaichana Dechdecho, the Democrat MP who chairs the panel, said the Justice Minister has assigned a deputy director-general of the Corrections Department to testify on behalf of Somsak, the department chief and the Police Hospital chief.
The Bangkok Remand Prison chief would also testify later on Thursday, he added.
On December 14, the House committee on police affairs, which is chaired by Dejdecho, said it would in January visit Police General Hospital to seek proof that Thaksin is really there.
