BANGKOK (AP) – Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra said on Friday he was acquitted of the royal family’s defamation.
His lawyers also confirmed the verdict, but the Bangkok Crown Court did not immediately issue a statement.
The monarchy slander law, a crime known as Lese Majeste, is punished in prisons for three to 15 years. It is the strictest of such laws worldwide and is increasingly being used in Thailand to punish government critics.
When he was indicted last year, Thaksin’s freedom of bail was approved on bonds of 500,000 baht ($13,000) on a condition that he could not leave Thailand unless approved by the court. His passport was confiscated.
Thaksin’s enemies, a generally loyal royalist, accused him of corruption, abuse of power, who died in 2016, and of disrespectfulness of the then king Bumibor Adriyadeji.
Thaksin was originally indicted for comments he made to a Korean journalist a year ago. He was in exile and was not pursued at the time as he was unable to complete the required legal proceedings.
Since his return, Thaksin has been attracting attention, travelling through a country that makes public figures and political observations that could disrupt the powerful conservative facilities behind the 2006 expulsion.
