SURIN: Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra told his supporters yesterday that he would personally pay for detained red shirts to be bailed out, and said he would soon make an “elegant” return to Thailand.

Thaksin, who fled the country in 2008 after being convicted by the Supreme Court for abuse of power – and who faces a two-year prison sentence if he returns – delivered his message in a phone call to a meeting of about 300 northeastern red shirt supporters at the office of Pheu Thai MP for Surin Teeyai Poonsrithanakul in Surin’s Rattanaburi district yesterday evening.

Read more: Bangkok Post