Thai ex-PM sentenced to five years in jail

BANGKOK (AFP): Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been found guilty of criminal negligence and sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.

The Supreme Court convicted her of mishandling a rice subsidy scheme which allegedly cost Thailand at least $8bn. Ousted in 2014, weeks before a military coup, and later impeached, Ms Yingluck denies all charges and fled before the verdict, reportedly to Dubai.

Public opinion is divided. She remains popular with rural and poor voters. The Supreme Court judges said Ms Yingluck had been aware of the falsified rice deals but did nothing to stop it.

“The accused knew that the government-to-government rice contract was unlawful but did not prevent it,” the court said in a statement. “Which is a manner of seeking unlawful gains. Therefore, the action of the accused is considered negligence of duty,” it said.

During her trial, Ms Yingluck had argued she was not responsible for the day-to-day running of the scheme and insisted she was a victim of political persecution.

Ms Yingluck is thought to be in Dubai where her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, lives in self-imposed exile avoiding a 2008 sentence for corruption. Ms Yingluck entered politics only after his sentence and was seen by critics as a proxy for her ousted brother.

Both siblings remain popular among Thailand’s rural poor, but are opposed by an urban and middle-class elite. She is unlikely to serve any of her sentence because she is out of the country.

The trail ran over two years, with a ruling initially scheduled for late August. When Ms Yingluck surprisingly failed to show up in court, the verdict was postponed and an arrest warrant was issued for her.