Just months ago he appeared to have been consigned to the dustbin of history — forced out of office in a military coup, stripped of much of his fortune and facing criminal charges that could land him in prison.

But this morning, Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's deposed Prime Minister, will make a triumphant homecoming that could mark the latest step in his remarkable return to power.

Thousands of supporters, including members of Thailand's new Government, a smaller number of opponents and 10,000 police, are expected at Suvarnabhumi airport as Mr Thaksin returns to Bangkok for the first time since he was deposed in a military coup in September 2006.

He faces immediate arrest for multi-million-pound property fraud — but he will almost certainly be bailed, amid signs that the charges against him may be dropped. Indeed, the bail terms may let him to travel abroad for business, allowing him to stay in control of Manchester City. “Many people think I should return home as the country returns to democracy,” Mr Thaksin told a television interviewer in Hong Kong. “I am confident that I am innocent. I have done nothing wrong. I am ready to prove [it].”

Far from being treated as a fugitive from justice Mr Thaksin will use the airport's VIP suite and be processed by a special immigration officer allocated to him by Santi Prompat, the Transport Minister.

Chalerm Yoobambrung, the Interior Minister, said yesterday: “I will be there as the old friend ... who promised voters that if they chose the People's Power Party (PPP) we would bring Thaksin back with full honours.”

In his interview in Hong Kong, Mr Thaksin said that he has “quit politics”, a claim that will be treated sceptically by many Thais. Since being elected Prime Minister for the first time in 2001, he has shown himself to be a consummate political operator who has repeatedly outwitted his rivals. His most brilliant stroke came last December, when he won a general election by proxy.

For 15 months a military-appointed Government rewrote the constitution, pursued charges against Mr Thaksin and barred him and leading members of his Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party from politics. Even King Bhumibol Adulyadej, endorsed the coup. But despite the absence of their leader, his supporters regrouped, renamed themselves the PPP, and overcame the opposition Democrat Party, which had the support of the outgoing military rulers.

Mr Thaksin's greatest source of support is the rural poor. During two terms in office his Government provided cheap loans for farmers, affordable healthcare programmes, and pursued a campaign of extrajudicial executions of alleged drug dealers — winning him the love of Thais who had never before had an advocate in national politics. As a billionaire telecoms mogul, Mr Thaksin prided himself on taking a businessman's approach to solving national challenges.

But according to his critics he treated the country as a family corporation — placing friends and supporters in key jobs, intimidating the media and making political decisions to the benefit of his own conglomerate, Shin Corporation. After two election victories, middle-class opponents began rallies against him in Bangkok. The generals forced him from power in the name of restoring peace and unity while Mr Thaksin was in New York.

Along with his wife Potjaman, he is charged with corruption relating to her purchase of a 772 million baht (£12.9 million) plot of land in Bangkok in 2003. The prosecutors allege that a government agency sold the property at Mr Thaksin's behest for one third of its market value. About $2 billion of his assets have been frozen by the Government as investigations continue.

But with Mr Thaksin's closest allies, including Samak Sundaravej, the new Prime Minister, controlling the Government, it seems likely that the prosecutions will founder. This week the head of the Department of Special Investigation, which is conducting several of the investigations, was transferred to a new job, and replaced by a former aide of Mr Thaksin.

Memorable returns

— On return from exile last year, Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani Prime Minister, planned a two-day procession through Karachi. Hours into the journey, she narrowly escaped a suicide bomb that killed 100 supporters.

— In 1814 the French Emperor Napoleon lost to the allied armies and was exiled on the island of Elba, with a personal staff of 1,000. After 100 days, he escaped to the mainland and caused royalist forces to join him with the cry: “If there is any soldier among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, here I am”

— After 20 years in America, the dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to post-Soviet Russia in 1994, taking two months to cross the country by train, met by well-wishers at every stop

Sources: Times archives, One Hundred Days: Napoleon's Road to Waterloo

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