Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra expects his younger sister, fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, to return to Thailand around April next year.
Japan's Nikkei Asia media outlet on Monday reported this in a story based on its exclusive interview with Thaksin in Udon Thani province last Thursday.
Thaksin is quoted as saying that Yingluck should be able to return for the Songkran festival in April next year.
Thaksin said in the report that he did not see any obstacle to Yingluck's return, and she might be back slightly before the Songkran festival, depending on timing and opportunity.
In April Thaksin had said while in his native province of Chiang Mai that Yingluck might return before the end of this year. She was last seen in public seven years ago.
The Supreme Court's Criminal Division for People in Political Positions on Sept 27, 2017, sentenced Yingluck to five years in prison for failing to stop fake and corruption-plagued government-to-government sales of rice from her government's rice-pledging scheme.
The court pronounced judgement in Yingluck's absence. The announcement was postponed from Aug 25, 2017, after she failed to appear. A warrant was subsequently issued for her arrest.
Yingluck was reported to have fled the country to meet Thaksin in Dubai before the court delivered its decision.
In December last year the Supreme Court acquitted Yingluck of malfeasance in her 2011 transfer of a National Security Council secretary-general.
Last month the Supreme Court acquitted her of malfeasance and collusion in the awarding of a 240-million-baht campaign to promote her government's 2-trillion-baht infrastructure projects.
