A Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be charged with royal insult and computer crimes, the junta’s attorney general said on Friday, a day after a court issued a second arrest warrant for his sister.
Thaksin, whose populist movement’s struggle with the Thai establishment has dominated politics for over a decade, lives in exile after fleeing Thailand to escape a jail sentence for corruption after he was overthrown in a 2006 coup.
His sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, overthrown as prime minister in 2014, fled Thailand in August to avoid conviction in a criminal negligence case she said was politically motivated. She was jailed for five years in absentia.
Attorney General Khemchai Chutiwong did not give details as to exactly how Thaksin had insulted the monarchy, which is protected by a stringent lese majeste law.