BANGKOK — Thailand’s Supreme Court said Friday it will issue an arrest warrant for former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra after she failed to show up for a contentious trial verdict in which she could face a 10-year prison term for alleged negligence in overseeing a money-losing rice subsidy program.
A judge read out a statement saying that Yingluck’s lawyers had informed the court she could not attend because of an earache. But the judge said the court did not believe the excuse because there’s no medical verification, and the court would issue a warrant for her arrest as a result.
A verdict had been expected to be delivered within hours in the tense trial, in which Yingluck is accused of negligence in overseeing the rice subsidy program that cost the state billions of dollars. The hearing was postponed to Sept. 27.
Yingluck has pleaded innocent, and decries the charges as politically motivated. If convicted, she has the right to appeal.
The case is the latest chapter in a decade-long struggle by the nation’s elite minority to crush the powerful political machine founded by Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 and now lives in exile. He has not commented on his sister’s case.
Thaksin’s ouster triggered years of upheaval and division that has pitted a poor, rural majority in the north that supports the Shinawatras against royalists, the military and their urban backers.
The rice subsidies, promised to farmers during the 2011 election, helped Yingluck’s party ascend to power. Critics say they were effectively a means of vote buying, while Yingluck supporters welcomed them.