Thai ex-PM Yingluck misses verdict, arrest warrant issued
25 Aug 2017 4:44 PM GMT
BANGKOK/KHON KAEN: A Thai Supreme Court judge said the suspected Yingluck Shinawatra, the prime minister ousted by a coup in 2014, had fled or gone into hiding after she failed to attend court on Friday for the verdict in a negligence case brought by the ruling junta.
Yingluck, whose family has dominated Thai politics for more than 15 years, faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty in a case centred on the multi-billion dollar losses incurred by a rice subsidy scheme for farmers. The court set a new date of September 27 for the verdict, and said it would seek an arrest warrant for Yingluck as it did not believe her excuse that she could not attend the court hearing because of an ear problem. "We don't think that the defendant is ill. We think that the defendant is hiding or has fled ... We have pushed back the verdict date to September 27," a statement from a Supreme Court judge said. "She asked for sick leave not to show up today."
Yingluck's lawyer, Norwait Lalaeng, said he was unaware whether she was still in the country. A spokeswoman for Yingluck declined to comment.
The long-awaited verdict could inflame tension in the Southeast Asian country and have far-reaching implications in the politically divided kingdom. Hundreds had gathered outside the court on Friday where Bangkok's metropolitan police said around 4,000 police had been deployed and checkpoints had been set up. The rice subsidy programme - a flagship policy of Yingluck's administration - saw her government buy farmers' crops at prices up to 50 percent higher than market prices. The policy was popular with farmers but 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.
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