The lawyer of new Manchester City football club owner Thaksin Shinawatra has said that, although the ex-Thai Prime Minister has abused the Thai people's Human Rights, the degree of abuse "wasn't that bad".
According to Noppadol Pattama, Mr Thaksin told the Thai military to suppress an insurgency in the south of the country, himself suppressed the Thai media, and personally presided over 2,500 extrajudicial drug dealer killings during the notorious "war on drugs".
"This is nothing to worry about", said Mr Pattama.
Thaksin, the Thai Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006, was ousted from his post after a bloodless military coup last September, and decided that he needed a new project to 'cheer himself up'. Last month he bought the ailing Premiership club as a hobby.
His first act was to install Swedish grandad Sven Goran Eriksson as team manager - itself an abuse of Man City fans' Human Rights - before generously granting trials to three Thai no-hopers who could barely say the word "football", let alone play the game.
Human Rights Watch spokesman Brad Adams told BBC Sport:
"It's the basic Human Right of any drug dealer to stay alive and sell drugs."
But Mr Pattama said:
"These people are scum. They sell their filth to vulnerable people and young children, and ruin countless lives, getting rich in the process. Gunning down a couple of thousand of them isn't Human Rights Abuse, it's a Public Service!"
