The Office of the Attorney-General has approved the Finance Ministry's order for commercial banks to transfer funds in various bank accounts belonging to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra and his family to the state coffers.
In a majority vote, the court ruled that the ex-premier had abused his power while in office to benefit his massive shareholdings in Shin Corp before selling those shares to Temasek Group of Singapore in 2006.
To execute the court's ruling, commercial banks in which Thaksin and his family have accounts have been asked to transfer funds totalling Bt46 billion to the Finance Ministry.
However, lawyers representing Thaksin and his family have sought a court injunction on the transfer of the funds to the state treasury.
Meanwhile, the Department of Special Investigation has asked five commercial banks to report the detailed transactions of deposit accounts from which money was withdrawn by two of Thaksin's children since the Revenue Department issued an asset-freeze order.
DSI director-general Tarit Pengdit said letters had been sent yesterday to Bangkok Bank, Siam Commercial Bank, Bank of Ayudhya, Thanachart Bank and the Government Housing Bank.
The financial institutions have been instructed to submit the reports as soon as possible.
Tarit said the DSI had acted upon a Revenue Department request. It does not necessarily indicate any wrongdoing in Panthongtae and Pinthongta Shinawatra's withdrawals from the deposit accounts.
The DSI's investigation will establish whether such withdrawals are damaging the companies that own the accounts.
Tarit added that the DSI was not taking the side of any party. The investigation has been launched to prevent damage to government agencies.
