BANGKOK - THAI prosecutors on Thursday accused ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra of being 'unusually rich' and said they would ask the courts to confiscate 2.2 billion dollars worth of his family's assets.

Authorities have already frozen the money as part of corruption investigations into the tycoon, who was toppled in a 2006 coup.

Prosecutors and the counter-corruption agency have decided to ask the Supreme Court to seize the money, 10 days after Thaksin and his wife Pojaman skipped bail and fled to Britain to dodge a slate of graft charges against them.

'The attorney general and National Counter Corruption Commission have agreed to submit the case seeking to confiscate assets from Thaksin and his family worth 76 billion baht (2.2 billion dollars), on the allegation that he is unusually rich,' the attorney general's spokesman Thanapich Mulpruek told reporters.

They plan to file the case on August 25 asking the court to allow the state to take Thaksin's cash currently frozen in Thai banks, he added.

The money represents most of the profits his family earned when they sold his Shin Corp telecom empire in 2006 to Singapore's state-linked investment firm Temasek Holdings.

The tax-free sale of Shin Corp sparked a public uproar, bringing tens of thousands of people into the streets in protests that eventually led to the coup against him.

Thaksin fled to Britain claiming that he could not receive a fair trial in Thailand and that he feared for his family's safety. His lawyer says he will seek political asylum in Britain, where he owns the Premier League club Manchester City.

bc/ask/gs/mtp Thailand-politics-Thaksin-assets AFP 210955 GMT AUG 08