Thaksin sues Thai graft busters for 1.5 billion dollar

BANGKOK, July 19 (Reuters) Ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra sued a military-appointed anti-graft panel today demanding 50 billion baht (1.5 billion dollar) in compensation for damage caused by its order to freeze his assets.

Thaksin lawyers filed the case in Bangkok's Civil Court accusing the 11-member Asset Examination Committee -- set up after Thaksin was ousted in a bloodless September coup - of freezing 1.58 billion dollar in domestic bank accounts illegally.

''We demand 50,016 million baht from the committee - 16 million baht for the investment opportunity losses and 50 billion baht for damages to fame and integrity,'' lawyer and spokesman Noppadon Pattama told a news conference after filing the suit.

The AEC, a panel of legal and accounting experts, did not press charges against Thaksin when it ordered banks to freeze his accounts, but it said it had come to the conclusion that ''Thaksin and his cronies had been corrupt and committed wrongdoings''.

A former policeman and telecoms tycoon, Thaksin came to power in 2001 as head of the Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party, promising to improve the lives of the rural poor with universal public health care and cheap credit schemes.

He was wildly popular in the countryside, but critics and political opponents said he used his vast wealth to blind voters to ''policy corruption'' under which companies such as his family's Shin Corp telecoms empire benefited unfairly.

He denied all such charges.

The 3.8 billion dollar sale of Shin Corp to Singapore state investment company Temasek, which netted Thaksin's family 1.9 billion dollar tax free, in early 2006 triggered the mass street protests that led ultimately to the army's decision to launch Thailand's 18th coup in 75 years of on-off democracy.

Noppadon said Thaksin's legal team would also file a criminal case against the AEC, accusing it of freezing his assets illegally, and would send a separate request to the panel to unfreeze the assets.

REUTERS ARB PM1540