FILE - In this Friday, March 22, 2019 file photo, Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra welcomes his guests for the wedding of his youngest daughter Paetongtarn "Ing" Shinawatra at a hotel in Hong Kong. A court in Thailand has on Thursday, June 6, 2019 sentenced former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in absentia to two years in prison over his handling of a state lottery program he initiated while in office more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
BANGKOK – A Thai court has sentenced former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to two years in prison over his handling of a state lottery program he initiated while in office more than a decade ago.
His conviction Thursday by a branch of Supreme Court was for malfeasance, for carrying out a policy judged to be in violation of the law or official regulations.
Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006 and has been absent from Thailand since 2008, when he fled to avoid serving a two-year prison term on a conflict of interest conviction.
He was sentenced in April to three years' imprisonment for ordering Thailand's Export-Import Bank to make a loan to Myanmar which was used to pay a satellite communications company then controlled by him and his family.
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