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| Thai ex-PM banned from politics | |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| Thailand's ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and 110 other senior party officials have been banned from political office for five years. | |
| The Constitutional Tribunal also ordered Mr Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party to be dissolved after finding it guilty of violating electoral laws. | The Constitutional Tribunal also ordered Mr Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party to be dissolved after finding it guilty of violating electoral laws. |
| It ruled that two members had bribed smaller parties to influence the result of elections in April 2006. | |
| Mr Thaksin was later removed in a military coup, accused of corruption. | Mr Thaksin was later removed in a military coup, accused of corruption. |
| The verdicts were announced in a heavily guarded courtroom in the capital, Bangkok, after hours of suspense. | |
| "All of the Thai Rak Thai party executives at the time the wrong-doing was committed will be subject to the ban. | |
| "Even if they quit later, they cannot escape the guilt," said one of the nine judges involved in the ruling. | |
| Mr Thaksin resigned as party leader days after he was overthrown in the military coup in September. He now lives in London. | |
| Earlier, the same court found Thailand's oldest party, the Democratic Party, not guilty of six charges of election fraud. | |
| The court ruled that it had not maligned the Thai Rak Thai party during last year's election campaign, and thus would not be forced to disband. | |
| Rise and fall | |
| Speaking after the ruling, current Thai Rak Thai leader Chaturon Chaisang urged people across the country to remain calm. | |
| "Even if we don't agree with the ruling, I ask all Thai Rak Thai members not to protest or oppose the ruling... exercise your thoughts to solve the problem," he said. | |
| Correspondents in the capital say the situation on the ground seems relatively calm. But thousands of soldiers are on alert in case of unrest following the verdicts. | |
| A former Thai Rak Thai deputy had threatened to mobilise thousands of protesters if the court ruled against it. | |
| Interim Prime Minister Gen Surayud Chulanont, who was installed after Mr Thaksin's overthrow, said he would issue an emergency decree if necessary. | |
| Thaksin Shinawatra, the wealthy founder of a telecommunications empire, set up the Thai Rak Thai (Thai Loves Thai) party in 1998, and its rapid emergence transformed Thai politics. | |
| He swept into power in 2001, and became the first prime minister in Thailand's history to lead an elected government through a full four-year term in office. | |
| Eighteen months later he was out of office after a military coup, accused of corruption and abuse of power. |