Exiled Thaksin Vows to Confront Thai Enemies

This news updete by www.zeenews.com





Bangkok: Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose British visa was revoked last week, said on Monday that he would leave Beijing for an undisclosed location and vowed to fight back against his political enemies.

"I will keep travelling. I'm leaving Beijing at the moment," Thaksin said in the Chinese capital.

He refused to say where he was going next but denied the destination was Manila, as rumoured.

He also denied Thai media reports that he was building a CNY 60 million (USD 8.89 million) mansion at a golf resort near Beijing.

Thaksin, who had been living in London after he and his wife, Potjaman, skipped bail in August to avoid corruption charges, said he scrapped his British asylum application to be free to carry on his political activities.

"I dropped the asylum bid because I don't think it is necessary. I don't like the term asylum. I want freedom because I am a champion of democracy. I don't like anything that restricts freedom," Thaksin said.

He was sentenced to two years in jail last month for breaking a conflict of interest law during his five years in office before he was ousted in a bloodless 2006 coup.

In Britain, he generated headlines with the purchase of the Manchester City soccer club, which he recently sold to a group of investors from Abu Dhabi.

The billionaire telecoms tycoon said he would address supporters at future rallies in northeast Thailand, a region that helped give him two landslide election victories.

"I will phone in and talk to the people who love and have faith in me. I will make a longer speech and start naming names because they have pushed me into a corner," he said.

Earlier, a Philippines foreign department official said that they have not received an asylum request from Shinawatra. Thai newspapers have been reporting that Thaksin may be heading to Manila, where his brother-in-law, incumbent Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, was scheduled to visit today.




Via news