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Suspended Thai PM Paetongtarn faces ethics investigation over leaked phone call
The National Anti-Corruption Commission has set up an investigation panel and there is ‘no time frame’.
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Thailand’s anti-corruption body will investigate suspended prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra for alleged ethics violations over a leaked phone call with Cambodia’s influential former leader Hun Sen, an official and local media said on Monday.
The investigation will be another blow to the beleaguered government of 38-year-old Paetongtarn, Thailand’s youngest premier, who the Constitutional Court suspended from duty earlier this month over the same issue.
The leaked June 15 call, during which Paetongtarn appeared to kowtow before Hun Sen and criticised a Thai army commander, triggered a major backlash at home, with allegations she had undermined Thailand’s integrity and sovereignty amid a heated territorial dispute with Cambodia.
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Paetongtarn has since seen protests calling for her resignation and the exit from her coalition of its second-largest party, leaving her government with a razor-thin majority.
“The commission has set up an investigation panel. There is no time frame,” said an official from the National Anti-Corruption Commission, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the matter.
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