Thaksin Will Return to Thailand in May, Wife Claims

The wife of deposed Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra today said her husband will return home from self-imposed exile in May to face corruption charges.

Pojamarn Shinawatra made the statement as she pleaded not guilty to corruption charges before the supreme court.

During the brief first hearing, she pleaded not guilty and asked the court for 90 days in which to prepare documents and witnesses for her defense. A court statement also said that her husband would return in May to fight the same charges.

Pojamarn is accused of using her husband's political influence to buy Bangkok property from a government agency at a third of its estimated value.

Thaksin, the owner of Manchester City football club, who lives mostly in London, has given several different dates for his return home. Most recently he said he was "considering" returning in April.

Speculation is rife that he has been trying to forge secret deals with the military and the royalist establishment through his wife to pave the way for his return.

Thai newspapers have suggested that Pojamarn has already met top military brass and the chief royal adviser, Prem Tinsulanonda, accused by her husband's supporters of being the mastermind of the 2006 coup.

"There will be a wholesale effort to wipe the target clean, to allow Thaksin and Pojamarn to get off," the Chulalongkorn university political scientist, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, told Reuters.

"If the trial had started last year, there might have been people willing to testify against them, but in the next three months, I doubt it."

The charges were the result of an investigation by a panel appointed by the coup-making generals and stemmed from Pojamarn's purchase of a valuable property in downtown Bangkok, owned by the central bank, at an auction where other bidders backed out. Thaksin's comeback seems increasingly likely after his supporters in the People Power Party (PPP) formed a coalition government following their victory in general elections last month. The election results were seen as a public repudiation of the coup and criticism of the military has become sharper.

Pro-Thaksin stalwart Samak Sundaravej is expected to be named prime minister on Friday amid opposition from the military and anti-Thaksin activists who led mass demonstrations prior to the coup.