Thailand’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a criminal case against the country’s last elected prime minister could proceed. If convicted, Yingluck Shinawatra could be imprisoned for a decade. Her supporters see this as part of the junta’s campaign to permanently eliminate the Shinawatra clan from Thai politics.
Thailand’s Supreme Court has set May 19 as the date for the first court hearing in a criminal case against former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The high court, in announcing acceptance of the case from the attorney general’s office, declared it had jurisdiction.
Yingluck was forced from office shortly before last year’s military coup. She is accused of dereliction of duty and negligence in connection with a bungled rice-pledging scheme. Her government paid farmers twice the market rate for their crops.
The project was popular among her core rural supporters in the north, who primarily compose the Red Shirt movement, as opposed to the Yellow Shirts, favored by the Bangkok middle class and staunch monarchists.
On her Facebook page shortly after the Supreme Court announcement, Yingluck defended the scheme, saying that it had benefited farmers and “I did nothing wrong.”
The rice subsidy plan was the catalyst for a junta-appointed legislative assembly in January to impeach Yingluck — a move intended to ban her automatically from politics for a five-year period. A criminal conviction could put her behind bars for years beyond that period.
Source-VOA
