Thailand's former PM Yingluck ‘has fled abroad’

Ousted Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has fled the country ahead of a verdict against her in a negligence trial brought by the junta that overthrew her, sources close to the Shinawatra family say.

Yingluck, 50, whose family has dominated Thai politics for more than 15 years, failed to show up at court for judgment in a case centered on the multi-billion dollar losses incurred by a rice subsidy scheme for farmers.

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Overthrown in 2014, Yingluck had faced up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

“She has definitely left Thailand,” said one source, who is also a member of the Shinawatra’s Puea Thai Party. The sources did not say where she was now.The Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant after saying it did not believe her excuse that she could not attend the court hearing because of an ear problem, but there was no sign of police showing up at her house.

“It is possible that she has fled already,” Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told reporters.

Yingluck’s lawyer, Norrawit Lalaeng, said her team had told him on Friday morning she had an “ear fluid imbalance” and could not attend court. He said he was unaware whether she was still in the country. Her spokeswoman declined to comment.

Yingluck’s brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who heads the political clan, was overthrown in a 2006 coup and fled into exile to escape corruption charges that he said were aimed at demolishing the populist movement he founded.

The struggle between that movement and a Bangkok-centered royalist and pro-military elite has been at the heart of years of turmoil in Thailand.

The verdict against Yingluck was widely seen as having the potential to reignite tensions, though the junta has largely snuffed out open opposition. The Supreme Court said the verdict would now be delivered on September 27.

Yingluck last commented on social media on Thursday, saying on her Facebook page that she would not be able to meet supporters at court because of the security measures.

She had been banned from traveling abroad at the start of the trial in 2015 and has attended previous hearings.

SUPPORTERS GATHER

Hundreds of Yingluck supporters had gathered outside the court on Friday where around 4,000 police had been deployed. Some held roses while others wore white gloves with the word “love” on them.

If Yingluck fled it would disappoint her supporters and make her opponents feel vindicated, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.

“It does not help with Thailand’s division and polarization,” he said.

Under the rice subsidy program, Yingluck’s administration paid rice farmers up to 50 percent more than market prices. It left Thailand with huge rice stockpiles and caused $8 billion in losses.

Yingluck has said she was only in charge of coming up with the policy but not the day-to-day management of the scheme.

In a related case on Friday, the Supreme Court sentenced Yingluck's former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom to 42 years in jail after finding him guilty of falsifying government-to-government rice deals between Thailand and China in 2013.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the coup against Yingluck's government in the name of ending political turmoil, has promised that an election will be held next year.

Yingluck had been banned from politics for five years in 2015 by the junta's legislature for alleged graft in the rice-purchasing program.