BANGKOK: Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Saturday he was ready to face charges of insulting the monarchy that mark a setback to a political heavyweight whose allies are currently in government.
The complaint, lodged by the royalist military that ousted the government of his sister Yingluck Shinawatra, stems from an interview the influential tycoon gave to foreign media in 2015. Other charges include violating a computer crime law.
Thaksin said he would meet prosecutors on June 18, but he was not concerned about the case and was ready to fight it.
“It’s nothing. The case is baseless,” he told reporters.
Thaksin, 74, denies wrongdoing and has repeatedly pledged loyalty to the crown, criticism of which is forbidden under Thailand’s controversial lese-majeste law, one of the strictest of its kind around the world.
His is the most high-profile case among more than 270 prosecutions in recent years under the law, which carries a maximum jail term of 15 years for each perceived insult against the royal family.
Thaksin founded the populist Pheu Thai party and his family’s parties have won all but one election since 2001, with three Shinawatra governments toppled by coups or court rulings.
The billionaire returned to Thailand in 2023 from 15 years of self-imposed exile, when he remained a central figure during repeated bouts of political upheaval.
He was convicted of abuse of power and conflicts of interest and sentenced to eight years in prison, later commuted to one year by the king. He was released on parole in February after just six months in detention.
Pheu Thai leads the current government, with Thaksin’s business ally Srettha Thavisin serving as prime minister and his daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the party’s chief.
Thai ex-PM Thaksin says ready to face royal insult charges
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Thai ex-PM Thaksin says ready to face royal insult charges
- The complaint stems from an interview the influential tycoon gave to foreign media in 2015
- Thaksin said he would meet prosecutors on June 18, but he was not concerned about the case and was ready to fight it
Islamist militants show ‘unprecedented coordination’ in Burkina Faso attacks
- The assaults were on several towns in the north and east including Bilanga, Titao, Tandjari and Nare
- The operations targeted military detachments, civilian convoys and market areas
DAKAR: Islamist militants have killed dozens of soldiers and civilians and overrun an army detachment over the past week in coordinated attacks across multiple regions of Burkina Faso, according to internal reports by two diplomatic missions reviewed by Reuters.
The operations by Al Qaeda–linked Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam wal-Muslimin show the JNIM is increasingly able to mobilize across large swathes of territory at one time, said the reports, which described a list of locations and places that came under assault.
Burkina Faso’s military rulers seized power in a coup in 2022, promising to improve security. But militants’ attacks have increased in the West African country as state forces battle an insurgency that has spread across the Sahel from Mali.
The assaults were on several towns in the north and east including Bilanga, Titao, Tandjari and Nare, the diplomatic reports said. One also described an assault in the eastern city of Fada N’Gourma and flagged another in the northern Ouahigouya area.
“These attacks, which were almost simultaneous and spread across several provinces, demonstrate unprecedented coordination between militants and the junta’s inability to contain the assaults,” said one of the internal reports, which put the death toll at more than 180.
The other gave no toll but said the incidents appeared coordinated and involved several hundred militants serving JNIM and possibly Daesh affiliates.
The operations targeted military detachments, civilian convoys and market areas, it said.
JNIM has said it killed scores of troops from the Burkinabe army in attacks in the past week, US-based SITE Intelligence Group said on Monday.
Burkina authorities did not respond to a request for comment on the assaults or casualty reports.
INJURED GHANAIANS RETURN HOME
In the northern town of Titao, militants attacked an army base and set a market on fire, the internal reports said.
Nearly 80 soldiers and pro-government militia members were killed, one said. The other said about 10 civilians were killed there.
The dead civilians included eight tomato traders, Ghana’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
SITE quoted a media unit for JNIM as saying the insurgents had seized military vehicles, guns and other possessions in the assaults. More than a decade of insurgencies in the Sahel has displaced millions and engendered economic collapse, with violence pushing further south toward West Africa’s coast.
JNIM claimed nearly 500 attacks in Burkina Faso in 2025 and nearly 300 in Mali, SITE’s director, Rita Katz, said in a social media post on LinkedIn.
