(Reuters) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BANGKOK, July 14 – Thailand’s anti-graft body will investigate suspended Prime Minister\u00a0Paetongtarn Shinawatra<\/a>\u00a0for alleged ethnics violations over a leaked phone call with Cambodia’s influential former leader Hun Sen, an official and local media said on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The investigation will be another blow to the beleaguered government of 38-year-old Paetongtarn, Thailand’s youngest premier, who the Constitutional Court suspended<\/a> from duty earlier this month over the same issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The leaked<\/a> June 15 call, during which Paetongtarn appeared to kowtow before Hun Sen and criticised a Thai army commander, triggered a major backlash at home, with allegations she had undermined Thailand’s integrity and sovereignty amid a heated territorial dispute<\/a> with Cambodia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paetongtarn has since seen protests calling for her resignation and the exit from her coalition of its second-largest party, leaving her government with a razor-thin majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The commission has set up an investigation panel. There is no timeframe,” said an official from the National Anti-Corruption Commission, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The body has a broad remit to probe allegations of offences by state officials beyond graft. Multiple Thai media outlets on Monday reported it had decided to investigate Pateongtarn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The NACC secretary-general Sarote Phuengrampan told reporters he was not aware of the investigation or any decision by commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n