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A source at the Office of the Attorney-General (OAG) said Chulasingh Vasantasingh, the attorney-general, is planning to prosecute the 19 cases with combined damages of almost Bt10 billion before their statute of limitations expires next year.

Chulasingh has assigned Seksan Bangsomboon, director-general of the OAG's Economic and Resources Department, to wrap up the City Trading case against Saxena in the courts before reporting the process to the Canadian government.

"After that we'll ask for permission from the Canadian government to lodge the additional 19 cases against Saxena," the source said.

However, Saxena and his legal team are devising a defence strategy by making a strong case that the government had sought to extradite him from Canada to stand trial on irregularities surrounding City Trading alone. It would not therefore be justifiable to lodge other cases against Saxena, they are expected to argue.

The damage from lending by the now-defunct Bangkok Bank of Commerce (BBC) to City Trading - a "paper" company - amounts to Bt1.6 billion.

Sombat Wongkamhaeng, a former secretary-general of the Law Society of Thailand, warned that the authorities must prosecute Saxena on all the cases in hand, rather than solely on the City Trading case.

"If the authorities fail to prosecute Saxena on all the available cases, they can be held accountable later for malfeasance," he said.

At 10am yesterday, Kunacha Chaichumporn visited Saxena in Bangkok Remand Prison and was with him during a two-hour police interrogation from 11pm.

Kunacha is a junior partner in the legal practice of Kumnuan Chalopathum, who is likely to named as Saxena's chief attorney.

Kunacha said he was simply accompanying Saxena during the police interrogation. "But the police were only clarifying the legal charges and the rights of the defendant. Some details of the case also need to be translated from Thai into English so that Saxena can understand the charges," he said.

He added that Saxena was in the process of forming his legal defence team.

"He is now in good health, much better than the day he arrived," he added.

Meanwhile, a preliminary police investigation has failed to link the BBC loan scandal with politicians serving in the current coalition government.

However, the police said that if during their investigation they found evidence to implicate government politicians, they would pursue the correct course of legal action.