Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been granted parole after serving eight months of a one-year prison sentence for corruption and abuse of power, which was pressed against him while in self-exile. He will be released on 11 May.

The 76-year-old Thaksin qualified for parole on the condition that he wears an electronic monitoring bracelet (EM) until the end of his one-year sentence, according to several Thai news outlets.

The Department of Corrections revealed that parole is granted when an inmate is over 70 years old, has no more than 1 year remaining on their sentence, and has undergone rehabilitation and behavioural improvement such that they are considered at low risk of recommitting the same offences.

Thaksin has served an eight-months in jail and will remain on probation for the remaining four months. He is required to report once a month until his sentence ends in September this year.

The former PM revealed that he was confused about the requirement to wear an EM bracelet given his old age and status as a former national leader, but he and his family respected and accepted the committee’s decision.

In the 2001 general elections, Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party received a landslide victory, marking a milestone in Thai political history. The party became the first ruling party in history to complete a full four-year term in office.

The party also won the 2006 general elections and successfully formed a single-party government. Former PM Thaksin was ousted as a PM in a 2006 coup later that year, and then fled the country in 2008.

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 in absentia. Following a royal pardon, his sentence was reduced to one year. However, Thaksin never spent a day behind bars due to his alleged illness.

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 detention in hospital was not in accordance with Department of Corrections regulations.