Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin is released on parole after serving 6 months in a hospital

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s former prime minister has been released on parole from a Bangkok hospital where he spent the last six months serving time for corruption-related offenses. Thaksin Shinawatra was convicted of corruption and abusing power during his time in office. His original eight-year sentence was commuted to a year by the Thai king on Sept. 1, shortly after Thaksin voluntarily returned from more than a decade of self-imposed exile. A polarizing figure in Thai politics over the last two decades, Thaksin was in office from 2001 until he was toppled in a 2006 coup.