Thailand's Criminal Court on Thursday found former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's wife, Pojaman Shinawatra, guilty of tax evasion involving 546 million bath (some 15.8 million U.S. dollars) in a shares-transferring deal and sentenced her to a three-year jail term.

Pojaman's step-brother Bannaphot Damapong and her personal secretary Kanchana Honghern, were also found guilty in the same charges filed by the Attorney General in March, 2007.

The trio were accused of having colluded in evading the taxes in the transfer of 4.5 million shares of the family company -- Shinawatra Computer and Communications worth 738 million baht (22.03 million dollars).

Bannaphot was sentenced to three years in jail, too -- two years for conspiring the tax evasion, one year for giving falsified statements to the court. Kanchanapa got a two-year jail term for being involved in the conspiracy.

Pojaman had arrived to hear the verdict which the court started reading at around 10 a.m. (03OOGMT), amid tight security around the Bangkok court, with over 200 uniformed police officers on guard when she arrived.

Accompanying her at the court was her whole family, including her husband, ex-premier Thaksin and their three children -- son Panthongtae, daughters Pinthongta and Paethongtan.

Pojaman and the other two defendants all denied the charges. The defense team had fielded nearly 20 witnesses to testify for them, but the prosecutor side outnumbered them, summoning more than 30 witnesses to beat the defense arguments.

Thursday's ruling was not final. The three defendants have the right to appeal within 30 days from Thursday. After the verdict was handed down, the three were released by each posting a 5-million-baht (149,254 dollars) bail.

(Xinhua News Agency July 31, 2008)