Home Global News Ousted Thai Premier Yingluck Shinawatra Gets 5-year Jail Term for Negligence

Ousted Thai Premier Yingluck Shinawatra Gets 5-year Jail Term for Negligence

The verdict was read in absentia after she fled the kingdom last month. | Source: nationmultimedia.com
The verdict was read in absentia after she fled the kingdom last month. | Source: nationmultimedia.com
The verdict was read in absentia after she fled the kingdom last month. | Source: nationmultimedia.com
The verdict was read in absentia after she fled the kingdom last month. | Source: nationmultimedia.com

New Delhi: Thailand’s Supreme Court has sentenced ousted premier Yingluck Shinawatra to five years in prison after finding her guilty of negligence over a rice subsidy scheme her government set up to help farmers.

The verdict was read in absentia after she fled the kingdom last month.

Shinawatra’s administration was toppled in a 2014 coup and she was later put on trial for negligence over her government’s rice subsidy scheme, which is said to have cost billions of dollars.

She pleaded innocent and accused the ruling junta of a political witch-hunt.

The sentence is going to anger millions of supporters in Yingluck’s “Red-Shirt” movement ahead of elections promised next year by the military.

“The court found that the defendant is guilty as charged…the court has sentenced her to five years in prison and the court also unanimously agreed that the sentence will not be suspended,” a judge said.

“The defendant did not take such precaution therefore contributing to huge losses to farmers, state budget, ministry of finance, the country and the people,” it said.

Shinawatra’s scheme that saw her government purchase rice from farmers at nearly twice the market price was extremely popular in the rural heartlands but was slammed by critics as a costly handout.

“There was corruption in every step of the rice pledging programme,” the court verdict said, adding that it cost the country nearly $10 billion.

Junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha declared that his “spies” had informed him of Shinawatra’s whereabouts, but the location would not be revealed until after the judgment was delivered.

Yingluck dramatically fled the country a month ago and has not made any public comment since leaving Thailand. There are widespread reports that she joined her billionaire brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 coup, in Dubai.