Thai court sacks PM Srettha for appointing minister with criminal conviction
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00:00Not yet one year into the job and Thailand's Prime Minister has been dismissed.
00:05After a court ruled he violated the ethics code when he appointed a minister who'd been convicted of corruption.
00:15I respect the verdict of the Constitutional Court.
00:20I reiterate that for almost one year I have been in this role and I have tried with good intentions to lead the country with honesty.
00:31Outgoing Prime Minister Sreta Tavizin had named Pichit Chuenban, a former lawyer, to a cabinet position in April.
00:38Yet he stepped down from the post a few weeks later when controversy around his prison sentence erupted.
00:45Pichit spent six months behind bars in 2008 for attempting to bribe a judge in a case involving former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
00:54Sreta became Prime Minister last August, ending nine years of military-dominated governments in Thailand.
01:01Many see this latest ouster as a political decision since politicians with more serious convictions have been allowed to serve in the past.
01:11I heard about the rumour so it was not so shocking. But I didn't expect that he would be gone that fast.
01:20The situation in our country has always been worrying, even before Sreta arrived.
01:26This latest governmental upset comes just a week after 11 MPs were banned from politics by the same court.
01:33An interim leader will be taking over while the Thai parliament convenes to decide on Sreta's replacement.