Deposed Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who on Thursday made a bid in London to buy the Manchester City football club for 81.6 million pounds (162.5 million dollars), will not return to Thailand this month to face corruption charges, his lawyer said, according to dpa. The Manchester City board has said it will back Thaksin's attempted takeover of the club after the former prime minister, living in exile in London since his overthrow by a coup on September 19, 2006, lodged a formal bid via UK Sports Investment, a vehicle controlled indirectly by Shinawatra and his son and daughter. "Thaksin will be using money belonging to his family to make the purchase," Thaksin's lawyer Noppodol Pattama told a press conference in Bangkok. "Thaksin will become the president of Manchester City and will attend a friendship match between his club and Real Madrid on July 29." The bid, apparently designed to impress Thailand's football-loving public, was well timed to keep Thaksin preoccupied with business in London and away from Bangkok, where he faces a host of legal challenges, but Noppodol denied any connection. "There is no connection," said the lawyer, who acts as Thaksin's spokesman in Thailand. "It just so happened that we made the offer today." Noppodol added that Thaksin was unlikely to return to Thailand to face corruption charges any time soon. "He will definitely not return this month," Noppodol told Deustche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone. On Tuesday, the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) summoned Thaksin and his wife Potjaman to return to Thailand by June 29 to face charges that they concealed the true extent of their ownership in a company listed on the stock exchange. Noppodol said Thaksin, in London, and Potjaman, currently in Singapore, could acknowledge the charges from abroad. In Bangkok, Thai prosecutors Thursday morning filed corruption charges against Thaksin and his wife at the Supreme Court for a dubious land deal made in 2003 when Thaksin was still premier. Prosecutors also asked the court to order the seizure of a 772- million-baht (22-million-dollar) plot of land along Bangkok's Ratchadapisek that Potjaman bought from the Bank of Thailand's Financial Institutions Development Fund in 2003 when Thaksin was still prime minister. The couple stand accused of breaching the National Counter Corruption Act, which bars state officials and their spouses from doing business with a state agency. If convicted, they could face three years imprisonment and a fine of up to 60,000 baht (1,714 dollars). It was the latest of several legal blows delivered to Thaksin, a billionaire former telecommunications tycoon who as prime minister between 2001 to 2006 enjoyed unprecedented executive powers based on the popularity of his now defunct Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) Party. Thaksin's wife Potjaman, who ran his business empire when Thaksin was in office, is said to be in Singapore where she is undergoing medical treatment. On May 30 the Constitution Tribunal dissolved Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party and banned him and 110 party executives from politics for the next five years. Then on June 11 the Assets Examination Committee froze 21 local bank accounts of Thaksin and his family, tying up 53 billion baht (1.5 billion dollars) in family cash. On Monday, the AEC froze another eight Shinawatra family accounts worth 8 billion baht (228.6 million dollars) and the Attorney General indicted Thaksin and his wife for the Ratchadapisek land deal. Then on Tuesday the Department of Special Investigation summoned Thaksin and his wife to return to Thailand by June 29 to face charges of share-holding concealment or face arrest. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the Shinawatra family had reported holding 60.82 per cent of the shares in listed SC Assets, but allegedly failed to report another 20-per- cent holding via their offshore nominee firm Win Mark. The couple could face five years imprisonment and fines if found guilty of breaking stock market regulations and face further charges of lying about their wealth to the government's national corruption committee. Thaksin recently accused the government and justice system of bullying him and his family and last Friday promised to return to Thailand to defend his dignity, but it is still unclear when he will return to the kingdom.
