THE military-imposed Government of Thailand will seek to extradite from Britain Thaksin Shinawatra, the deposed Prime Minister, if — as is widely expected — he is charged with corruption and abuse of power during his five years in office.

Mr Thaksin was deposed in a military coup while in New York last Tuesday and flew the next day to London, where he has remained since. But Major-General Thawip Netniyom, spokesman for the self-styled Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy, said yesterday that the new regime would pursue all legal avenues in imposing justice on the former Prime Minister, including extradition.

“The process of law — that [extradition] is part of it,” he told The Times in Bangkok yesterday. “If we have the evidence that he is guilty of something or he has done something against the law, most probably we will send a letter to the British Government about it. If [we] prove . . . someone has done something wrong, and we leave it, that means we are not doing our job.”

This morning the Thai auditor-general and the country’s National Counter-Corruption Commission will begin investigating ten separate allegations of corruption against Mr Thaksin and his Government.

A report by the Associated Press news agency yesterday gave substance to rumours that the deposed Prime Minister spirited much of his vast fortune out of Thailand before the coup. It quoted unnamed officials of Thai Airways, who confirmed that he flew out two planes, loaded with 114 large suitcases and trunks, when he left on a tour of Europe and America.

General Thawip also became the first of Thailand’s selfappointed military leaders to admit that the coup was an illegal act. “It is against the law. If I say it’s not against the law I shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“But sometimes, to break the deadlock, someone has to do something. Just like when your computer is hung and you cannot do anything about it, what you’re going to do is push the reset button or unplug it and that’s the only way to solve it.”

General Thawip is the Thai military’s head of military information technology.

The rebooting of Thai politics has so far proceeded remarkably smoothly, with just one demonstration last Friday by a group of left-wing students and academics who oppose Mr Thaksin and the use of military force to unseat him.

But General Thawip said that no more demonstrations would be tolerated. “If this same group comes back again you will see a reaction from us, for sure,” he said. “We already gave them a warning once and if they come back again with the same thing, of course you will see the way we treat them differently. Probably they will be arrested, because they break the rules.”

Ten of the tanks that have been on vigil in the city’s Royal Plaza have withdrawn to their bases. The military has promised to appoint a civilian prime minister, whose name will be presented tomorrow for approval to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

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