Council for National Security (CNS) chairman General Sonthi Boonyaratglin offered an apology yesterday to the Constitution Tribunal judges for suggesting former executives of the Thai Rak Thai Party, whose electoral rights they revoked for five years, could receive an amnesty.

CNS spokesman Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd said Sonthi would clarify the issue with Cabinet ministers at their weekly meeting today.

Speaking after the CNS' weekly meeting yesterday, Sansern confirmed that Sonthi had expressed regret for suggesting the idea so soon after the Tribunal's verdict.

He said Sonthi told the CNS members that someone had called him and proposed the idea, which was in line with his preference for national reconciliation. He mentioned the idea during a television interview on Friday without discussing it with the seven other members of the junta.

The Constitution Tribunal ruled last Wednesday that the Thai Rak Thai party be dissolved and that the electoral rights of its 111 former executives be revoked for five years after senior officials were found to have committed electoral fraud.

Sonthi's remark was heavily criticised over the weekend.

"The person who called [Sonthi] is neither a member of the CNS nor the National Legislative Assembly. But the CNS chairman didn't want to say who it was because he doesn't want to cause them any harm," Sansern said.

He said Sonthi would be happy to answer questions on the issue.

Justice Minister Charnchai Likhitjittha said that giving amnesty to the penalised executives would require a new law to be passed.

He said the announcement issued by the Council for Democratic Reform (as the CNS was formerly called), that set the penalties for executives of a party dissolved by the Constitution Tribunal, was equivalent to an Act. Therefore another Act was needed to amend it, not merely a Cabinet resolution.

But Thammasat University law lecturer Banjerd Singkaneti, who is a member of the Assets Examination Committee, said an amnesty could not be applied to the Thai Rak Thai case. Amnesties were only allowed in criminal cases in which a ruling was final and undisputed.

The former Thai Rak Thai executives must undergo their full five-year punishment, he said.

Meanwhile, former Thai Rak Thai MP Kuthep Saikrachang, one of the party's legal defence team, said Sonthi had had no intention of granting an amnesty to the executives. The CNS chief proposed the idea so people would attack it and rub salt into Thai Rak Thai's wounds, he claimed.

Chat Thai Party leader Banharn Silapa-archa said Sonthi was too quick to propose the idea of an amnesty. "Mistakes can happen when [one] speaks to media often. General Sonthi speaks to the media often these days - every day. I just want to warn that he was too quick to speak," Banharn said.