Leaders of a long-running protest in Thailand were released on bail on Friday after surrendering to police on charges of inciting unrest, leaving them free to continue their five-month campaign to unseat the government.
"Everything is done. There is no detention," Sondhi Limthongkul, the head of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), told reporters after his release from a Bangkok police station along with six colleagues. No bail bond was posted but three appointed senators, one of them a newspaper editor on Sondhi's payroll, gave guarantees that the seven would return to court when summoned.
Their surrender followed a Court of Appeals decision to quash treason charges against them on Thursday. The court issued fresh warrants for inciting unrest, which carries seven years in jail. Two PAD leaders already in custody were freed on Thursday on the lesser charge, a major blow to the government and police who had been hoping to decapitate the protest movement by gradually picking off its leadership.
In another sign of the tide flowing against the ruling People Power Party (PPP), state prosecutors said they were forwarding to the Constitutional Court an Election Commission recommendation that the PPP be disbanded for vote fraud.
Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat has cancelled weekend visits to Laos and Cambodia, his spokesman said on Friday. With pressure mounting on the military to launch another coup only two years after its removal of Thaksin Shinawatra, army chief Anupong Paochinda stressed yet again that intervention would do nothing to defuse the underlying tensions.
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