BANGKOK: Former 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 said yesterday.
Yingluck, 50, whose family has dominated Thai politics for more than 15 years, failed to show up at court for judgment in a case centred on the multi-billion dollar losses incurred by a rice subsidy scheme for farmers.
Overthrown in 2014, Yingluck had faced up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. Her former commerce minister was jailed in a related case for 42 years yesterday.
“She has definitely left Thailand,” said one source, who is also a member of her Puea Thai Party. The sources did not say where she had gone.
Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who heads the political clan, was overthrown in a 2006 coup and fled into exile to escape a corruption conviction that he said was aimed at demolishing the populist movement he founded.
The struggle between that movement and a Bangkok-centred royalist and pro-military elite has been at the heart of years of turmoil in Thailand. The verdict against Yingluck could have reignited tension, though the army has largely snuffed out open opposition.
After Yingluck failed to show up, the Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant against her and rescheduled the verdict to September 27. It said it did not believe her excuse that she could not attend the court hearing because of an ear problem.
“It is possible that she has fled already,” Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said. He later said police were investigating reports that she had left via Koh Chang, an island close to the Cambodian border.
Cambodian immigration police said she had not entered their country.
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 tight security.
She had been banned from travelling abroad at the beginning of the trial in 2015 and has attended previous hearings. The court confiscated the 30 million baht ($900,000) that Yingluck had posted as bail.