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Ex-Thai PM Sentenced in Absentia to 5 Years in Prison

Ex-Thai PM Sentenced in Absentia to 5 Years in Prison
Ex-Thai PM Sentenced in Absentia to 5 Years in Prison

A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose government was ousted in a 2014 military coup, in absentia to five years in prison for alleged negligence in a money-losing rice subsidy program.

Yingluck, who has said the charges are politically motivated, is believed to have fled the country last month before the original date of the verdict. Her lawyers said on Wednesday that they have no idea where she is, AP reported.

Yingluck’s conviction had been widely expected, as the military remains firmly in charge and the courts have a record of antipathy toward her politically influential family.

Thailand’s military government has doggedly pursued Yingluck in court. In an earlier, separate administrative ruling that froze her bank accounts, she was held responsible for about $1 billion of the up to $17 billion in alleged losses resulting from the rice subsidy program —an astounding personal penalty that prosecutors argued she deserved because she ignored warnings of corruption but continued the program anyway.

Yingluck and her supporters say she is innocent and was prosecuted as part of an effort to dismantle the political machine of her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a telecommunications tycoon. Thaksin was toppled from power by a 2006 military coup after being accused of abuse of power, corruption and disrespect for the monarchy. He is living in self-imposed exile to avoid serving a prison term from a 2008 conviction on a conflict of interest charge.

Yingluck, who inherited the leadership of Thaksin’s political machine and was elected prime minister in 2011, became a proxy target for his enemies as well.

The rice subsidy scheme was a flagship policy that helped Yingluck’s Pheu Thai Party win the 2011 general election. The government paid farmers about 50% above what they would have received on the world market, with the intention of driving up prices by warehousing the grain.

 

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