Summary of the case against Khun Thaksin

With only one more day to go until Thailand's Supreme Court hands down its decision regarding the Thaksin Shinawatra's asset siezure case, the following is to provide some perspective on what the issues are and how they should be ajudicated upon.

The case agaist Khun Thaksin, by the Thai Government in a nutshell is:

During Khun Thaksin's tenure as Thailand's Prime Minister, he had abused his powers to enrich himself, by initiating policies that were beneficial to his companies. The main actions that he is being blamed for are:

The method by which AIS, Thailand's flagship mobile phone operator paid its concession fees to its concession rights holder the Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT), causing TOT to lose billions of baht in fees it should have recieved.

The Thai Exim Bank Loan to Myanmar, for it to buy telecommunication equipment, especially Satellite bandwith.

The hiding of Khun Thaksin's shareholdings of his businesses through nominees, going against the laws of the political holder's act.


These are the three main charges as to why the State should sieze Khun Thaksin's wealth in Thailand, or as we now know, 76 Billion baht.

So does the State have a case? Should it be able to seize all of Thaksin's 76 billion baht? Lets take a look at each charges against him, starting with the concealment of his shares through nominees.

This case is not new, and as a matter of fact it was once already ajudicated during Thanksin's first term as Prime Minister. In that case instead of his children holding shares on behalf of Thanksin it was his maid, drivers, secreatary, and so on. In his famous, "I didn't mean to do it mea culpa speech to the Supreme Court". Thaksin was found not guilty of asset concealment by a 5 to 4 decison.

So the obvious question is, what is the difference between today and yesterday. If the Supreme Cour's decison at the time was to find him not guilty of the very act that he is being accused of today, then just by shear precedent the previous decison should hold up. And one must remember judges are instructed to look at precedents first in coming up with their decisions. Now I am not saying that what Khun Thaksin did was right in either case, but a decison had been handed down prior and in law there can be no case for double jeapordy.

As per the Exim Bank loan to Myanmar, which supposely Thaksin pressured the bank to do so that the Myanmar government can recipricate back right away and use the money to buy satellite services from ShinSat, one of Khun Thaksin's company. One must not forget that Thailand has been giving out loans to our neigbors for years. This is part of our good neigbor strategy and keeps Thailand in line as the leading power in the Greater Mekong Region. A number of people has stated that the loan was full of hidden agendas for ShinSat, my question in return would then be, we would have loan Myanmar the money anyway thrugh our good neigbor policy, would it have been better if they then use our money to buy the services from some other country. To say that ShinSat benefited from this deal, absolutley it did, for the simple reason that it's the only company in Thailand who can offer the services to Myanmar. But along with ShinSat, Thai employees benefited, Thai tax revunue benfited, and the country as a whole benefited thorugh the fact that one of our neigbor countries who we deal with everyday now owes us one.

Lastly the case against Khun Thaksin rest upon the fact that he enriched himself through setting up policies that benefited AIS and lost tremendous amount of money for TOT. To simplify this matter, Khun Thaksin is accused of setting up a new policies which shifted the way AIS was paying royalties for its mobile phone concession, rather then paying royalties directlt to TOT as it used too, the new policy allowed AIS to pay it directly to the excise department. On this one definilety guilty as changred. Though this action AIS saved billions of baht, which caused it finalcial outlook for any potential sale to be more attractive, thus enriching the shareholders of the company when the company was sold to Temasak. Not only did the new policy saved AIS billions but it also caused damaged to its competitors DTAC and TRUE, for the playing feild in regards to the cost of doing business was leaned towards AIS. The argument from Khun Thaksin's side would be that the action allowed the State to gain more money becasue it was now collecting the money straight from AIS rather than having to go through a third party TOT. This argumnet does not hold up becuse when you compare Apples to Apples, AIS was paying less perio, prior to the policy taking place.

So what should the Supreme Court decison be? Guilty on all counts and full seizure of his assets. Why such a strong opinion? Becasue there is no such thing as being a little pregnent. Corruption is Coruuption, and hopefuly by showcasing that no one is above the law, the next time one of our politicians decide to dip his hand in the cookie jar he will remember this case.