Lao Inmates Break Out of Cambodian Prison

Five Lao prisoners made an attempted escape from Stung Treng provincial prison on Saturday, but were recaptured before venturing far.

Security guards fired warning shots into the air as the five prisoners, all from Laos, broke through an exit gate. The inmates made their escape attempt during shower time as guards were not paying close attention, according to reports.

“They ran from the prison at 2:45PM and took their chance to make an escape when we let them have a bath,” said prison director Chhim Thida. “There were a total of five inmates. All of them were from Laos and had committed drug-related offences. Three have already been convicted, while the other two inmates are awaiting trial.”

Security guards fired warning shots into the air which stopped the escapees in their tracks.

Laos year a Lao national and four Cambodian inmates were also caught attempting to escape from the ceiling of their cell.

Source -  Laotian Times

#Thailand - Prayut ignored report on Yingluck’s UK asylum bid

PRIME MINISTER General Prayut Chan-o-cha did not pay attention to report that former premier Yingluck Shinawatra would seek asylum overseas because it was a personal matter, Government spokesperson Lt-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said yesterday.

Sansern said Prayut showed no interest in the matter because he was focused on his obligation to legal enforcement, which in this case involved attempts to have the fugitive ex-leader extradited to serve her prison time under the Thai justice system. Concerned agencies, Sansern added, have been working within local and international law to proceed with the case.

Sansern confirmed that the Foreign Affairs Ministry had unofficially acknowledged that Yingluck had travelled to the United Kingdom, but whether she would seek asylum there was her personal business. 

Criteria for asylum seeking in the destination country would be taken into consideration in her case, the spokesperson said.

Yingluck was sentenced in absentia on Wednesday to five years’ imprisonment for malfeasance involving her administration’s fraudulent government-to-government rice deals. 

She disappeared from public view in the days before August 25, when the verdict in her case was first due to be read.

On Thursday, Prayut said that Yingluck was in Dubai, where her brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, has reportedly been living in self-exile.

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Some international news outlets, including CNN, said she was in London and seeking political asylum in the UK, citing their source as her Pheu Thai Party.

The British Embassy in Thailand, told The Nation that “the [UK] Home Office does not comment on whether an individual is in the UK or not”. 

Thaksin and his family are said to be staying in London in a house worth Bt260-million. None of the family has so far have indicated whether Yingluck is also in the UK capital. 

A legal source had told The Nation that an individual has full rights to seek political asylum in a destination country with which he or she has some connection. The host country might take diplomatic relations into consideration, he said, noting that it has the full authority to grant or reject any application. 

Thaksin’s eldest daughter Pintongta on Friday posted on her Instagram account, showing her twin daughters asking her why they never met their grandpa Thaksin in Thailand. She was apparently posting from London, saying she had made the right decision to make a trip to be with her father at a difficult time.

Thaksin’s daughters have been posting family photos along with morale-booting messages since mid-September before the court verdict was eventually issued against Yingluck.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry has received a letter from the Royal Thai Police requesting it to revoke Yingluck’s passport.

The ministry is now considering the matter following its regulations concerning passport issuance, according to Busadee Santipitaks, the ministry’s spokesperson and chief of the Department of Information.

Meanwhile, the Suan Dusit Poll has surveyed opinions of around 1,000 respondents nationwide on the impacts of the court verdict on Thai politics and reconciliation.

Around 33 per cent, the highest share, said the verdict had quite an effect on reconciliation efforts as major parties and their members would not give their cooperation in future political activities. About 24 per cent viewed that it would greatly affect reconciliation efforts, as the rift among groups would be widened. Around 21 percent viewed that it would not have much impact because the government could control the situation and this was a personal matter, while the people just wanted to see peace and order.

Around 37 per cent viewed that the verdict would have quite an effect on politics because different groups would use the issue to attack one another. Around 27 per cent viewed that it would greatly affect politics as it has directly impacted on politicians’ credibility, and politics from now on would be under close watch. Only 19 per cent viewed that it would not affect politics much and the government could control the situation.

Source - TheNation

Black day in Thailand

Fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been sentenced to a five-year jail term. 

The Supreme Court took almost four hours on Wednesday to read the verdict on Yingluck’s alleged negligence in her government’s rice-pledging scheme.

#Thailand - Yingluck’s location ‘known’

Prayut promises details revealed after verdict reading, but doubts extradition

PRIME MINISTER General Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday said he knew the whereabouts of fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra although there was a slim chance she could be extradited.

It was the first admission from the military regime that it had located the runaway ex-premier.

While Thailand holds extradition agreements with several countries, Prayut said Thailand “cannot even bring a certain someone overseas back here”. 

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He refused to reveal where Yingluck was, saying that more details would be revealed after her verdict is read today, including whether her Thai passport would be revoked as a result of the ruling.

“I have my own spies. I have information but I can’t say it out loud,” Prayut said. 

“Still, I need it to be verified.”

A few days after Yingluck disappeared, Prayut said Thailand had directly contacted Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates to find Yingluck. 

 

Thai police also asked Interpol to cooperate with 129 countries in its network.

Prayut said there was still no update from countries contacted through Interpol.

He said that Yingluck had not, and was unlikely to, obtain political asylum status in any country.

Yingluck was accused of dereliction in preventing corruption and irregularities in her government’s controversial rice-pledging scheme, which was blamed for causing massive losses to the state worth Bt500 billion. 

She apparently pulled off a dramatic escape a day or two before the Supreme Court was to deliver its verdict in the case on August 25. 

The reading of the verdict at the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders was subsequently rescheduled for today. If found guilty, Yingluck could face up to 10 years in jail and a lifetime ban from politics.

However, questions have been raised about whether the court will actually read the verdict and what other consequences there could be. 

Three scenarios

If the court issues a ruling there are three possible scenarios. First, she could be found guilty with a sentence of one to 10 years in jail, a Bt2,000 to Bt20,000 fine, or both. Second, a guilty verdict could be rendered with a suspended jail term. Third, she could be found not guilty.

There had been debate whether Yingluck would be allowed to appeal a negative ruling. 

While the new 2017 Constitution allows the appeal, the new law on criminal procedures against political office holders, which would lay out conditions for an appeal, has not been promulgated. 

Yingluck is not expected to show up at court today. If she is sentenced to a jail term, another arrest warrant will be issued for her. 

Prayut called for the public to remain calm after today’s ruling at the court. “It should proceed like every other case. No one should be alarmed,” he said. 

He also asked the public not to judge quickly the three police officers who were suspected for facilitating her escape. 

The officers might be found guilty of merely faking car licence plates, as Yingluck’s arrest warrant was not issued at the time of her apparent escape.

The National Security Council, meanwhile, said that fewer supporters of the former prime minister were expected at the court today, because they had been disappointed at Yingluck’s failure to appear at the court on August 25.

Council secretary-general General Thawip Netniyom said security forces should remain vigilant and were assessing how the court’s verdict would affect the country.

“[We] have to think of all the aspects of the verdict and try to come up with scenarios of what would happen consequently,” he said. 

“However, we believe it will not spill over into violence as everyone will respect the court’s ruling.”

In a related development, Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner Pol Maj-General Panurat Lakboon said yesterday the deputy commander of Metropolitan Police Bureau 5, Pol Colonel Chairit Anusit, could be summoned for interrogation over his alleged involvement in Yingluck’s flight.

However, the fact-finding committee must first consider the evidence, he said.

Panurat also said that he was now heading the committee.

The two other police officers suspected of involvement in the former premier’s flight would be interrogated further as witnesses in the case, Panurat said. 

Source - TheNation

 

#Thailand - Military branches clueless over Yingluck exit.

None of the three branches of the military – the Army, Air Force or Navy – has yet been able to establish which channel fugitive ex-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra used to escape from Thailand, military chief General Surapong Suwanna-art said on Wednesday. 

An arrest warrant was issued for Yingluck on Friday after she failed to show up at the Supreme Court to hear the final verdict in a case stemming from her government’s rice-pledging scheme.

There has been speculation that members of the armed forces gave Yingluck help to flee given that the former PM had always been followed and observed by military officers.

Some people have said that it seems unlikely that the military would have let their guard down so near to her verdict day.

Surapong said that if any officers had been found to be involved in such a scheme, they would be prosecuted.

 

Source - TheNation

Fugitive Thai ex-PM Yingluck in Dubai, aiming for UK

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".

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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