Thai court sentences ex-PM to 5 years in jail
Baku, September 27, AZERTAC
Thailand's Supreme Court on Wednesday found former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra guilty of malfeasance in a loss-ridden rice subsidy program and sentenced her in absentia to five years in jail, according to Xinhua.
Yingluck did not show up at the court and has so far not made any public comment on the verdict.
After a trial running over two years, the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions began reading the verdict at 11 a.m. local time and continued for nearly four hours.
In an announcement released by the court, it read that even though the unmilled rice program was an act according to government policy that the cabinet had stated to the National Assembly, if the implementation of such policy was not in accordance with law, such acts could be inspected by the judicial process.
Yingluck could be sentenced to as much as 10 years in prison if found guilty of negligence over a costly rice subsidy scheme that helped to bring her to power in an election in 2011.
In the scheme, Yingluck's government paid Thai rice farmers inflated prices for their crops, driving up global rice prices.
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