Wednesday, June 10, 2009
By JOCELYN GECKER,Associated Press Writer AP - Thursday, June 11BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand's globe-trotting, fugitive former leader Thaksin Shinawatra is no longer welcome in Germany and will be arrested if he returns there, a Thai foreign ministry official said Wednesday.
The Foreign Ministry was notified about the ban in an official letter from the German Embassy last week, said Chavanont Intarakomalyasut, a ministry spokesman.
'I have been told by the embassy that if Thaksin enters Germany again he will be detained,' Chavanont told The Associated Press.
The ban strikes another country off the map for Thaksin, who continues to roam the globe with a variety of passports and elude Thai authorities who say they are trying to extradite him.
Britain revoked Thaksin's visa in November 2008, a month after a Thai court convicted him of corruption and sentenced the tycoon to two years in prison. That ban blocked Thaksin from returning to his posh London town house where he had been living in self-imposed exile.
Thaksin's international wanderings followed his ouster in a 2006 coup after six years as prime minister.
The 59-year-old former telecommunications tycoon has been on the run on-and-off since the coup, surfacing most recently in Dubai, Nicaragua and Liberia in pursuit of investment opportunities. He has also been spotted playing golf in Bali, shopping at upscale malls in Hong Kong and on trips to China and Australia.
Thailand revoked Thaksin's personal and diplomatic passports, but he has acquired passports from Nicaragua and Montenegro. A Thaksin aide said last month he was considering buying a resort island in the tiny Balkan state, despite claims he was short on cash because the Thai government had frozen his assets.
Germany declared Thaksin persona non grata in December and placed him on a list of people barred from entering the country, said Chavanont.
German authorities then learned that Thaksin had entered the country using a so-called Schengen visa, traveling by car from a neighboring country and had received a one-year Bonn residency permit on Dec. 29, said Chavanont. The visa allows travel between more than a dozen European Union countries that have lifted land border checks.
'The federal government of Germany ordered the Bonn authorities to revoke the resident permit on May 28,' Chavanont said.
Germany's Foreign Ministry confirmed the government had revoked Thaskin's residency permit but declined comment on the ban or if he would face arrest, saying the ministry's concerns extended only to the permit.
It was not immediately clear if the ban was prompted by heated political protests that had gripped Thailand in December, which the government accused Thaksin of stoking from overseas. Despite his conviction, Thaksin retains support from rural voters who benefited from his policies of universal health care and low-interest loans for the poor.
The opposition Phuea Thai Party, which supports Thaksin, believes that Germany's ban was prompted by the current Thai government in a 'politically motivated' ploy to discredit the former leader and divert attention from Thailand's problems, party spokesman Pormpong Nopparit said.
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Associated Press Writer Melissa Eddy in Berlin contributed to this report.
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