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Ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is free to return from exile as soon as he wants to challenge graft allegations against him, as well as the seizure of US$1.5 billion in assets, his successor said yesterday.

 

Interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont gave a personal guarantee of the safety of the former telecoms tycoon, who has been in exile since a September military coup.

 

"He is eligible to return to account for his assets," Surayud told reporters. "He has 60 days in which to do so."

 

Ever since the coup, the generals have said Thaksin would be unwelcome until after a general election slated for December.

 

Earlier, Thaksin's lawyer vowed to fight back against the army and its appointed government, which announced on Monday they were freezing 21 domestic bank accounts belonging to Thaksin, his wife and two children.

 

"We have been pushed into the corner. We can no longer retreat, so we have to fight," Noppadon Pattama told reporters in Bangkok.

 

"He has been unfairly treated, so he will return to Thailand sooner than his original plan," Noppadon said, adding Thaksin would decide when to come back in "two or three days".

 

An Asset Examination Committee (AEC) set up after the coup ordered banks to freeze Thaksin's accounts, and help trace 20 billion baht (US$618 million) "missing" since his family's sale of their stake in telecoms giant Shin Corp to Singapore in January 2006.

 

Even though the assets swoop appeared to be designed to stop Thaksin bankrolling opposition to the army, analysts said it might backfire as outraged supporters of his disbanded Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party might take to the streets.

 

"Despite their explanations, the AEC cannot stop people from thinking it was a political decision," political commentator Sukhum Nualskul told a Bangkok radio station. "People will have sympathy for Thaksin, who they feel has been bullied."

 

Even though no charges have been filed in court, the AEC concluded that "Thaksin and his cronies had been corrupt and committed wrongdoings."

 

"I disagree with the order," said Sakol Pakdisamai, 41, a taxi driver from the TRT stronghold of the northeast. "There will be chaos because a lot of people who love Thaksin and disagree with the order will come out onto the streets."

 

A former policeman and telecoms tycoon, Thaksin came to power in 2001, promising to improve the lives of the rural poor with universal public health care and cheap credit schemes.

 

He was very popular in the countryside, but critics and opponents said he used his vast wealth to blind voters to "policy corruption" that unfairly benefited his family's companies.

 

Despite numerous appeals from the interim government to accept a court decision last month to disband Thai Rak Thai for electoral fraud and bar 111 of its party executive from politics for five years, pro-Thaksin demonstrations are growing.

 

The leader of one group who drew 10,000 protesters on Saturday called the assets freeze "a ruling by a kangaroo court" that would only serve to embolden opponents of the Council for National Security (CNS), as the coup leaders call themselves.

 

(China Daily June 13, 2007)