Thai Pm Flees Angry Protesters

Thailand's new prime minister was forced to flee angry protesters for the second time in a fortnight yesterday when he was cornered in an underground car park.

A crowd of about 200 jeering workers from the state telecoms operator screaming "Somchai, murderer" pelted Somchai Wongsawat with plastic bottles and shoes as he visited the information ministry in Bangkok. As the mob surged around him, Somchai slipped into the building and emerged through the front entrance, apparently in an effort to talk to the demonstrators. But the mob threw bottles and shoes at him. Hurling shoes is insulting in Thai culture as they are associated with what is considered the dirtiest part of the body.

Violent anti-government protests have paralyzed the capital for months. Two weeks ago as protesters laid siege to parliament Somchai crawled under a barbed wire fence to escape before being flown to safety in an army helicopter.

Two people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes between anti-government protesters and police outside parliament on October 7.

Protesters accuse Somchai of being a puppet of his brother-in-law, the ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, sentenced in his absence on Tuesday to two years in jail over a corrupt land deal.