Deposed Thai PM Thaksin quits politics -lawyer

BANGKOK, Jan 10 (Reuters) Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has quit politics four months after he was ousted in a bloodless coup, his lawyer said today.

''He has conveyed his message from Hong Kong that he no longer wants to be involved in politics,'' lawyer Noppadon Patama told reporters.

''He will not run for the next general election because he doesn't have any more political ambition to be the prime minister again.'' But Noppadon said Thaksin would remain a member of the party he founded, Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais), which faces disbandment on electoral fraud charges.

Some analysts said they were not convinced billionaire Thaksin meant to withdraw from a political arena he dominated for five years, winning two landslide elections before street protests against him led to political deadlock.

''He must be homesick and wants to return home, but not in the very near future,'' political analyst Sukhum Nualskul said.

''The fact that he wants to remain a member of Thai Rak Thai means that he wants his party to be politically active and perhaps return to power again,'' he said.

The coup leaders have said repeatedly they do not want Thaksin to return home anytime soon, fearing his presence could bring his supporters into the streets.

But Noppadon said Thaksin, who won elections on the back of massive rural support but accused by the military of rampant corruption which fed the street protests last year, would not come home anytime soon.

''His return must not be a cause for an unrest,'' Noppadon said.

The announcement came as a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the military-installed government had cancelled diplomatic passports issued to Thaksin and his wife.

Leaders of the September 19 coup that ousted Thaksin while he was at the United Nations in New York, said they believed politicians who had lost power, including Thaksin supporters, were behind New Year bombs that killed three people in Bangkok.

Thaksin, then in Beijing, denied the accusations through his lawyer and blamed insurgents in the rebellious Muslim south for the bombs.

Losing his diplomatic passport means Thaksin will not be able to call on Thai embassies for any assistance and he will have to travel on an ordinary passport.

''In accordance with changing political circumstances and security information, the foreign ministry has cancelled the diplomatic passports of former Prime Minister Thaksin and his wife,'' spokesman Kiattikhun Chartprasert told reporters.

He announced the move after word leaked that Deputy Foreign Minister Sawanit Kongsiri told a closed-door meeting of the army-appointed parliament that Thaksin's diplomatic status had been cancelled due to his ''political activities''.

Sawanit did not spell out what these activities were, although there has been constant speculation in Bangkok that Thaksin was busy working on undermining the military-installed government from afar.

REUTERS KD BS1625