Phnom Penh - Cambodia on Wednesday formally rejected an extradition request from the Thai government for its fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. A spokesman for the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, Koy Koung, said the government's response had been handed directly to Thai embassy staff.
"This morning, the people from the Thai embassy submitted a note requesting the provisional arrest for the purposes of extradition of Mr Thaksin Shinawatra," he said. "The response note [states that] we reject the request."
Koy Koung confirmed that it was turned down because Phnom Penh believes Thaksin's two-year jail sentence in Thailand was politically motivated, a categorization that allows it to reject the request under the terms of the two nations' extradition treaty.
Phnom Penh's rejection was expected, given its repeated statements that it would turn down such an extradition request.
"The government is disappointed that Cambodia has not followed international conduct in regard to extradition," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in Bangkok.
Thailand insists that Thaksin, who faces a prison term in Thailand for an abuse-of-power conviction for allowing his wife to successfully bid on a plot of prime land in a public auction when he was in office, has committed a criminal offence.
"We will have to review out assistance programmes in Cambodia but we will not close our common border, because this would adversely affect the Thai people," Abhisit said.
Thaksin arrived in Phnom Penh Tuesday at the invitation of the Cambodian government. He was scheduled to deliver a lecture on economics Thursday to 300 public servants in the capital.
The presentation followed his dual appointments as an economic adviser to the Cambodian government and a personal adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The appointments led to the Thai government recalling its ambassador Thursday, a move Cambodia reciprocated the following day as relations between the two kingdoms reached their lowest point in years.
Koy Koung said Wednesday that it remained unclear how long Thaksin would stay in Cambodia.
Thaksin, who was prime minister from 2001 to 2006 before being toppled in a bloodless coup, has been living in self-imposed exile, mostly in Dubai, since August 2008.
Thaksin was overthrown after he lost the backing of Thailand's Bangkok-based middle class and political elite. He remains popular with the poor because of his populist economic policies.
