Ex-thai PM Shinawatra released early on parole

Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been released on parole from a Bangkok hospital where he spent six months serving time for corruption-related offences.

Thaksin was seenneck support, as ling on his right arm and a surgical mask inside one of the cars in a convoy leaving the police General Hospital just before sunrise yesterday.

He was accompanied by his two daughters and they arrived at his residence in western Bangkok less than an hour later.

A homemade banner with the words "Welcome home" and "We've been waiting for this day for so, so long" was seen hanging at the front gate of his house. Thaksin and his daughters were driven straight into the compound and did not give any reaction to a throng of reporters gathered on the street.

Thaksin was accused of corruption and abuse of power during his time in office from 2001 to 2006, when he was toppled in a coup, and he remains one of the most polarising figures in Thai politics over the last two decades.

Analysts believe his release represents a drift towards reconciliation with his enemies in thailand' s conservative elite, who saw his popularity and brash populist politics as a threat to the monarchy, which is considered a bedrock of Thai society.

Thaksin is still believed to wield huge influence and will continue to "conduct the music behind the scenes" for the ruling Pheu Thai party led by his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra - but how much political power he can now exercise is unclear, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at bangkok' sc hula longko rn University.

Thaksin's original eightyear sentence was commuted to only a year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn on September 1, shortly after he voluntarily returned from more than a decade of selfimposed exile.