BANGKOK, Sept 9, (AP): Thailand’s Supreme Court said Tuesday former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra must serve a one-year prison term for previous convictions on graft and abuse of power charges, after investigating whether officials had mishandled his return to Thailand in 2023 to begin serving the sentences.

A judge said that the enforcement of Thaksin’s penalty was not done properly, and therefore his detention in a police hospital did not count as serving prison time. Following his return to Thailand after more than a decade of living in self-exile, Thaksin was sent to a suite at Bangkok’s Police General Hospital in the middle of the night, reportedly for medical reasons, after spending less than a day in prison.

His eight-year sentence was then commuted to one year by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, and he was released on parole after six months in the hospital. The circumstances raised questions about whether he received special treatment and many were suspicious whether he was genuinely ill. The court's statement Tuesday said evidence showed that Thaksin's condition on that night was treatable by the prison's hospital, but that he was instead sent directly to the police hospital without first being assessed by prison doctors, which was a violation of procedures.

It also said that the police hospital's request for an extension of his stay claimed that Thaksin needed urgent neck surgery, but a record showed that he received surgeries for a locked finger joint and tendonitis in his right shoulder, which were not serious conditions and not what originally sent him to the hospital.

The court added Thaksin did not end up having neck surgery before his release. It also said that Thaksin was believed to have intervened in the treatment procedures to avoid having to go back to the prison, and that he falsely claimed having a health condition in order to be sent to the hospital. Thaksin was sent to the Bangkok Remand Prison after the proceedings. A message on his Facebook page, shared by his team following the ruling, said that he accepted the court’s decision.