Thailand’s former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who is currently serving a one-year jail sentence, has met with two legal setbacks after his effort to avoid  facing a royal defamation charge was overturned and he was ordered to pay back taxes.

At a meeting in September, prosecutors voted 8-2 to end royal defamation proceedings against him but recently, the Attorney General appealed the ruling.

On Monday (17 November), newly appointed Attorney-General Ittiporn Kaewthip told the media that he was overturning the recommendation of former Attorney-General Phairach Pornsomboonsiri who retired at the end of September.

The royal defamation charge against Thaksin stems from a 2015 interview he gave to the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo. In the interview, he claimed that privy councillors supported the 2014 coup, which ousted the government of his sister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was elected in the 2011 general election and ousted by the coup in 2014.  The Court had earlier ruled that Thaksin did not mention the late King Bhumipol by name or make any direct royal reference, but instead, spoke of ‘the privy council’, ‘the military’, ‘the palace circle’, and ‘people in the palace’.

On the same day (17 November), the Supreme Court also ordered Thaksin to pay over US$500 million or 17.6 billion baht in back taxes for the sale of Shin Corporation shares in 2006.

The case dates back to 2017, when the Revenue Department ordered Thaksin to pay personal income tax with an additional fine of 17.6 billion baht. His legal representative appealed the case.

In 2023, after the Appeal Court for Specialised Cases revoked the assessment, claiming that the proceedings were unlawful, the Department appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which overturned the ruling and ordered the former PM to pay tax as requested.

The former PM began serving a one-year sentence for corruption and abuse of power at the Klong Prem Central Prison on 9 September, after the Supreme Court ruled that his previous hospital detention was not in accordance with Department of Corrections regulations.

Returning home in August 2023, he was immediately detained to serve a sentence of eight years in prison for corruption and malfeasance for which he had already been convicted. Following a royal pardon, his sentence was reduced to one year. Thaksin never spent a day behind bars due to his alleged illness, however.

The two rulings against Thaksin are further blows to the Shinawatra family. Thaksin’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was recently ousted from her position as PM by the Constitutional Court over her handling of the border crisis with Cambodia.