Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong remained unfazed on Tuesday by the latest petition asking the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) to formally investigate the ministry’s alleged misconduct in its handling of Thaksin Shinawatra's hospitalisation and early release from prison.
Pol Col Tawee reiterated that the ministry had strictly followed regulations on allowing a prisoner to receive treatment outside of prison, and to get parole. However, people had the right to petition the NACC to investigate what they believed to be misconduct in Thaksin’s case, he said.
He was responding to the latest petition submitted to the NACC on Monday by members of two groups, led by Thai Pakdee Party leader Warong Dechgitvigrom.
Submitted along with the petition was a document Dr Warong said was a confidential letter he had received from the Office of the Ombudsman and contained the findings of the Ombudsman's unofficial probe into the ministry’s alleged misconduct.
Despite rejecting his previous petition for a formal investigation into the ministry’s conduct, the office had later conducted an informal investigation into the matter, Dr Warong said.
The unofficial investigation concluded that the Department of Corrections had transferred Thaksin to the Police General Hospital on the night of Aug 22 last year only as a precautionary measure, not because Thaksin actually suffered any life-threatening condition at that moment, as claimed by the department, he said.
He believed this was evidence of the department’s misconduct.
The department’s claim that Thaksin was qualified for parole after spending about six months in the hospital's premium ward because he was so ill he could not live his day-to-day life without care from someone else was also untrue, Dr Warong said.
Under the regulations, according to Dr Warong, the health condition that left a prisoner unable to live without care from others must be irreversible, which apparently was not so in Thaksin's case - considering his current state of health, he said.
The department on Tuesday said that at the time Thaksin was allowed special parole and early release from his prison term, a standard screening test by the Department of Health rated him as having extremely poor health and requiring extra care by others.
The department defended all its actions in the handling of Thaksin's case, from transferring him to Police General Hospial to releasing him after six-months in hospital detention. Every process was justified and done lawfully, the department statement said.