Home free, Thai tycoon Thaksin unlikely to retire quietly

In his final months in self-imposed exile avoiding jail, Thailand's billionaire former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra declared his time as a fugitive was over and he was ready to face the music.

"I want permission," the tycoon said on social media last May. "It has been 17 years that I have been separated from my family. I am old."

It is still unclear from whom Thailand's most wanted man was seeking a green light to come home.

Thais had heard it all before during Thaksin's years of backchannel communications with his influential enemies and the unsuccessful leveraging of his immense political clout to try to negotiate a favourable route home.

But he finally made good on his promise in a dramatic return in August, culminating in his release on Sunday from detention a free man in his homeland for the first time in 15 years.

And doing time could have been a lot more difficult for the former police colonel.

Sentenced to eight years for abuse of power and conflicts of interest, Thaksin, 74, spent only a few hours in prison before being transferred to a hospital complaining of chest pains.

His term was commuted to one year by the king and after six months in a luxury hospital wing, Thaksin was paroled because of his age and his health, the full state of which has yet to be revealed.

'My fighter'

"He hasn't seen the air and sun outside for 180 days and hasn't returned to this house for 17 years #finallyhome," his daughter Paetongtarn said on Instagram on Sunday, with an image of a glum-looking Thaksin by a swimming pool, wearing a neck brace and with his arm in a padded sling.

Her sister Pintongta posted the same picture, with the words "My Fighter".

The image is a stark contrast to the more spritely Thaksin who returned six