BANGKOK, THAILAND - Allies of Thailand's deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra are running the country again, but he still faces a raft of legal challenges launched by the generals who ousted him 17 months ago.

Thaksin is expected to return Thursday from his self-imposed exile, where his first stop will be at the Supreme Court to hear corruption charges.

Following are some of Thaksin's most important legal troubles:

• Thaksin faces charges before the Supreme Court accusing him of using his political office to win his wife a sweetheart deal in the purchase of prime Bangkok real estate in 2003.

• The Department of Special Investigations, Thailand's equivalent of the American FBI, has brought separate charges accusing him of making fraudulent filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission when he listed a property firm in 2003.

• Army-installed investigators are still looking into allegations of wrongdoing in his family's sale of his telecom firm Shin Corp to Singapore's Temasek Holdings.

  His family made more than two billion dollars tax-free off the sale in January 2006, which sparked street protests that eventually led to the coup.

• Nearly a dozen other corruption cases are being examined by army-installed investigators, who could file additional charges against Thaksin, his family, and his political allies.

• Two billion dollars of his assets are frozen pending the outcome of the corruption investigations, money that Thaksin will doubtlessly want to regain.

• A military-appointed tribunal has banned Thaksin and 110 of his allies from politics for five years. The new government has said it would consider granting them an amnesty in two years, but that may not be fast enough for Thaksin's liking.