Court rejects Yingluck’s appeal for rice-graft retrial - Bangkok Post
Yingluck Shinawatra greets supporters upon arriving at the Supreme Court for a hearing during her trial for dereliction of duty related to her government’s rice-pledging scheme, in June 2017. (Photo: Tawatchai Kemgumnerd) The Supreme Administrative Court has rejected an appeal by former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to retry the case that resulted in an order for her to pay 10 billion baht for losses from a rice-pledging scheme she oversaw more than a decade ago.
The ruling on Wednesday affirmed the Central Administrative Court’s earlier refusal to accept a petition by Yingluck and her husband, Anusorn Amornchat, against the compensation order issued by the Ministry of Finance in 2016.
The higher court concluded that documents submitted by the sister of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra did not constitute new evidence capable of materially changing findings of negligence in the rice-pledging case.
As well, it said, the petition did not detail any factual error or procedural defect that could change the ruling.
The compensation order held Yingluck responsible, as prime minister and National Rice Policy Committee chair, for failing to prevent corruption and state losses from government-to-government rice sales in 2013.
Norawit Lalaeng, the lawyer for the former prime minister, said Wednesday’s ruling closes the book on attempts to get a retrial.
While the ruling appears to clear the way for the Ministry of Finance to enforce the compensation order, Mr Norawit said the legal team believed there were other grounds to continue challenging it, Thai media reported.
The Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Persons Holding Political Positions found Yingluck guilty in 2017 of mishandling the rice subsidy scheme intended to improve farmers’ incomes.
Yingluck, who fled Thailand in 2017 before the court sentenced her to 5 years in prison, has consistently denied wrongdoing. Her legal team argued that the rice policy was well-intentioned and that she was not directly responsible for operational failures.
