The wife of ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to corruption charges against her and her husband, who she said would return from exile to fight them in May.

The trial of Potjaman Shinawatra began two weeks after her return from exile. Analysts believe her return is designed to mend ties with the coup leaders and the royalist establishment backing them to pave the way for Thaksin's homecoming.

The trial also began a day after the coup-making council disbanded itself and promised there would be no more coups as a Thaksin-backed coalition government prepared to take office following a December 23 general election.

In a written statement to a nine-judge Supreme Court panel, Potjaman, free on a 5 million baht ($150,000) bond, denied she had violated anti-graft laws that prevent serving politicians and their spouses from doing business deals with state agencies.

"The second defendant has denied all the charges and asked for a 90-day period to seek evidence and witnesses," Judge Thonglor Chomngam said.

The panel set the next hearings for April 29 and 30, by which time a coalition government led by the openly pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP) will be in power.

The charges were the result of an investigation by a panel appointed by the coup-making generals and stemmed from Potjaman's purchase of a prime piece of land in downtown Bangkok owned by the central bank at an auction other bidders backed out of.

If convicted, Potjaman and Thaksin - a telecommunications billionaire whose lawyer told reporters on Wednesday May was a "safe" period for him to return to fight the charges - could face up to 10 years in jail.

JAIL TIME?

But political analysts say it is unlikely the couple would end up in jail as witnesses from state agencies and bidders who dropped out would be reluctant to testify against them with the PPP-led coalition in power.

"There will be a wholesale effort to wipe the target clean, to allow Thaksin and Potjaman to get off," said Chulalongkorn University political scientist Thitinan Pongsudhirak.

"If the trial had started last year, there might have been people willing to testify against them, but in the next three months, I doubt it," he said.

After his ouster in a bloodless 2006 coup, Thaksin was accused by military-appointed graftbusters of presiding over rampant corruption during his five years in power, but he and his family have faced few formal charges.

Analysts say Thaksin, who has kept pushing back his return date from exile in London and Hong Kong, has been trying to forge secret deals with the military and the royalist establishment through Potjaman to clear the way for his return.

Thai newspapers are rife with speculation about whether Potjaman has already met some top military brass and chief royal adviser Prem Tinsulanonda, accused by Thaksin supporters of being the mastermind of the 2006 coup.

Analysts saw the election results as a vote against the coup and criticism of the military is becoming ever more trenchant.

The coup leaders failed to eradicate Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party despite its court-ordered dissolution for electoral fraud and the banning of Thaksin and 110 senior party members from politics for five years.

Thai Rak Thai members simply took over the almost defunct PPP, which is expected to take office next month at the head of a coalition government and occupy the most powerful ministries.