Yingluck trial: Thai ex-PM sentenced to five years in jail
Image copyright 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.
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.
What was the rice scheme?
- Part of Ms Yingluck’s election campaign, it was launched after she took office in 2011.
- To alleviate rural poverty, the government paid rural farmers nearly twice the market rate.
- The scheme hit Thailand’s rice exports, leading to an estimated loss the military government says was at least $8bn.
Though popular with her rural voter base, the scheme was too expensive and open to corruption, her opponents said.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Throughout the trial, Ms Yingluck still had many supporters
Where is she?
Ms Yingluck is now 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.
