Former Thailand PM Is No-Show For Verdict; Court Issues Arrest Warrant

If Yingluck has fled it would disappoint her supporters and make her opponents feel vindicated, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University. “We think the defendant is hiding or has fled”.

Yingluck had on Thursday called on her supporters to stay at home to cheer for her instead of gathering in front of the Supreme Court. Her diehard fans were willing to defy the junta by rallying to show their support for her on Friday.

A spokeswoman for Yingluck declined to comment.

Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said security forces had not allowed Yingluck to leave and are checking possible routes she may have used if she did.

While Friday was dominated by the vanishing act of his former boss, former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom was sent to jail Friday on a 42-year sentence handed down by the Supreme Court.

Thailand’s high court is set to deliver its verdict on former PM Yingluck Shinatrawa on charges of negligence over a rice subsidy scheme.

Hundreds of them gathered in any case, outside the court where around 4,000 police had been deployed.

Yingluck was ousted from office by a Constitutional Court decision in May 2014, and shortly afterward the military took over again, dissolving the caretaker parliament, blockading streets in the capital Bangkok, and imposing martial law.

On Friday morning, her defense claimed she was too sick, but Reuters reports that she has fled overseas.

Yingluck, who graduated in political science before earning a master’s degree in business administration in the United States, spent much of her career working in her brother’s empire.

The scheme in which farmers were paid up to twice the market rate for their crops allegedly benefitted many of her supporters.

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

Yingluck’s whereabouts were not immediately known and her absence fuelled speculation that she might have left the country.

“With two family members as fugitives, the family loses political legitimacy”, she said, adding that Yingluck’s departure would be welcomed by a Thai junta tired of the prospect of her political martyrdom in jail.

A former telecommunications tycoon, Thaksin has lived in self-exile to avoid a 2008 conviction for graft that he said was politically motivated.

But three years of repressive junta rule has successfully quashed any widespread opposition to the military for now.

The rice subsidy was a flagship policy that helped Yingluck’s party win the 2011 general election.

“If she’s not guilty, she should stay and fight the case”, Mr. Prayuth said. She is already serving a five-year ban from politics following her impeachment in 2015. This political connection between Yingluck and her supporters could be put to good use had she been imprisoned.