Thai PM confident of pinning down Thaksin

Thailand's army-appointed premier said yesterday that a graft probe into his ousted predecessor Thaksin Shinawatra could wrap up as soon as this month and was confident it would "pin him down".

Thai prosecutors last month charged Thaksin's wife with tax evasion and yesterday threatened his children. But they have yet to charge Thaksin himself for graft, one of the main reasons the army gave for removing him in September.

"I can say that we are quite closing in on the final chapter of Mr Thaksin's future," Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont told a news conference in Tokyo. "We have all the evidence and I think the investigation ... will be able to pin him down this time," Surayud said.