The AEC subcommittee investigating the Shinawatra family's sale of shares in the telecom giant Shin Corp to Singapore's Temasek Holdings last year, discovered that Thaksin had retained his position as the authorised signer in a Singapore bank account held by Ample Rich Investment - his company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Ample Rich was holding 11 per cent of Shin's equity stakes valued at more than Bt16 billion when the shares were sold to Temasek Holdings in January last year.

Thaksin had insisted that he had sold his shares in Ample Rich to his son Panthongtae shortly after he rose to power in 1999.

But the panel found that Pan-thongtae and his sister Pinthongta had only replaced Thaksin as the authorised signers in the UBS bank account last year, according to the source.

"The subcommittee had repeatedly asked for the documents involving changes in the authorised signers from Kanchana Honghern, Pojaman's secretary, but she always had an excuse not to bring them," said the source, who is familiar with the investigation.

The tax-free sale of Shin shares led to a widespread outcry and street protests against Thaksin, which was cited as a reason by the coup makers in their overthrow of his government last September.

The AEC on Monday also ordered the freeze on 21 other bank accounts in which money from the sale of Shin Corp shares was deposited.

Holders of the 21 bank accounts include the Shinawatra couple's children Panthongtae and Pinthongta, as well as Pojaman's brother Bhanapot Damapong and Thaksin's sister Yingluck Shinawatra, according to AEC's secretary Kaewsan Atibodhi.

At its closed-door meeting, the 11-member AEC on Monday voted 7-4 in favour of freezing Thaksin and Pojaman's bank accounts, in addition to the 21 accounts where money from the Shin share sale was deposited, another source said yesterday.

The minority members - consisting of Viroj Laohaphan, Sak Korsaengruang, Amnuay Thanthra and Jiraniti Hawanont - argued that the asset freeze should not cover the Shinawatra's money deposited before Thaksin took office, according to the source.

The AEC will meet today to appoint a new subcommittee, likely to be headed by AEC member and Auditor General Khunying Jaruvan Maintaka, to trace the Bt20 billion withdrawn from the 21 bank accounts before the freeze, the source said. In ordering the asset freeze, the committee had cited the fact the money had been diluted from the accounts.

At their closed-door meeting before the decision on asset freeze was reached, the AEC members discussed about the findings that Pojaman had bought jewelleries with cash and took them out of the country, according to the source.

Budsarakham Sinlapalavan

The Nation