by Reinhard Hohler, Chiang Mai (26.02.2010)

According to the breaking news of www.BangkokPost.com, the majority of judges of Thailand’s Supreme Court decided in a landmark verdict against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to seize Baht 6.8 billion in dividend and Baht 39 billion Baht from the sales of Shin Corp shares, totaling Baht 46.37 billion. “The dividends and the sale of the shares in Shin Corp are wealth acquired through inappropriate means,” the judges said.

The nine Supreme Court judges allowed ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra to keep Baht 30.23 billion. The judges said “to seize all the money would be unfair, since some of it was made before Thaksin Shinawatra became Prime Minister.”

After such a compromising verdict, red-shirt protesters on Friday night burned a spirit house, after the Supreme Court had ruled that Baht 46.37 billion out of Baht 76.60 billion of frozen assets of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his family should be seized by the state. News reports said that supporters of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship’s splinter group, Daeng Siam (Red Siam), who staged a rally at Sanam Luang near the Supreme Court, set fire to a spirit house after the verdict was delivered.