Fugitive former Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra fled to Dubai and
may try to seek asylum in the UK, a junta source told AFP Saturday,
after she ducked a legal ruling, wrong-footing the court and her
supporters alike.
Yingluck, 50, was due on Friday morning to arrive at the Supreme
Court for the ruling in her trial for criminal negligence that could
have seen her jailed for 10 years.
But she did not show up, staging a vanishing act that wrote a
dramatic closing chapter to the 16-year political saga of her mega-rich
Shinawatra family.
Speculation swirled on Saturday on the whereabouts of Thailand's first female prime minister -- and her possible escape route.
The junta source, who is well-placed in the security hierarchy, gave a
detailed description of her escape, saying she took a private jet from
Thailand to Singapore and onto Dubai, the base of Shinawatra family
patriarch Thaksin, who is Yingluck's older brother.
"Thaksin has long prepared escape plan for his sister... he would not
allow his sister to spend even a single day in prison," the source
added, requesting anonymity.
"But Dubai is not Yingluck's final destination," the source said, adding she may be aiming "to claim asylum in Britain".
Thaksin, who once owned Manchester City football club, owns property
in London and spends significant amounts of time in the city.
The Shinawatra's political network remained tight-lipped on Saturday
in a media blackout that only served to heighten speculation over her
dash from Thailand and the likelihood of a possible deal with the junta
to allow her to leave.
A senior source inside the family's Pheu Thai party, also requesting
anonymity, on Saturday told AFP Yingluck had fled the country for Dubai a
few days before the ruling.
The Shinawatra political dynasty emerged in 2001 with a series of
groundbreaking welfare schemes that won them votes and the loyalty of
the rural poor.
But their popularity rattled Thailand's royalist, army-aligned elite,
who battered successive governments linked to the clan with coups,
court cases and protests.
Yingluck's government was toppled by a coup in 2014 and she was put
on trial over negligence linked to a costly rice subsidy that propped up
her rural political base.
Source - The Jakarta Post
