Fugitive former Thai PM gets 5 yrs' jail in absentia

Thailand's top court yesterday sentenced ousted premier Yingluck Shinawatra in absentia to five years in prison for criminal negligence, a verdict that likely ends the political career of a popular leader who fled the junta-run kingdom last month.

Yingluck's administration was toppled in a 2014 coup and she was later put on trial for failing to stop corruption and losses in her government's rice subsidy scheme, which the court said cost the country billions of dollars.

She pleaded innocent and accused the ruling junta of a political witch-hunt.But the Supreme Court in Bangkok deemed her guilty, saying she failed to stop graft and losses in the rice programme.

The verdict, which makes Yingluck's return to the kingdom increasingly unlikely, said the leader was aware of corrupt deals made by members of her administration but did nothing to stop them. The court said the policy cost Thailand nearly $10 billion in losses.

After attending dozens of hearings in a trial that lasted more than one year, Yingluck failed to turn up for a ruling originally scheduled for August 25 -- a day of high drama that left the kingdom dumbfounded.

The 50-year-old has not appeared in public since pulling the vanishing act. But there are widespread reports she joined her brother Thaksin, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 coup, in Dubai.

Analysts say the latest coup, followed by Yingluck's trial, was part of the ruling junta's effort to expunge her clan from politics for good. The guilty verdict may not rub out the Shinawatras' influence altogether but it spells "the end of Yingluck's political career," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a politics expert at Chulalongkorn University.