Criminal lawsuit lodged in Thai supreme court against Yingluck

A criminal lawsuit was formally filed in court against former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra involving an allegedly loss-ridden rice program on Thursday.

Public prosecutors submitted the duty-negligence charges against the former leader to judges of the Supreme Court in charge of criminal lawsuits against politicians.

Yingluck did not appear in court but her lawyers confirmed that she will definitely fight the legal battle and that she will not ever escape as earlier speculated.

The defendant does not need to show up in court when the case was formally submitted, according to Thai law.

If the court accepted the lawsuit in due course, Yingluck would appear in court on the date of the first trial, which is yet to be scheduled by court, said Anek Khamchum, one of the former prime minister's lawyers.

She had been alleged of failing to stop alleged corruption in the rice subsidy program which reportedly amounted to some 20 billion U.S. dollars in loss of the taxpayer's money.

The former prime minister had invariably argued that she had never neglected her duty and had taken steps to stop the alleged graft among certain government officials and traders over the rice subsidy program under which government units had bought rice from farmers nationwide for an average of 500 U.S. dollars a ton.

If found guilty as charged by the Office of Attorney General, Yingluck could possibly be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison, according to Thai law.

Yingluck had already been impeached by the National Legislative Assembly, which means that she had been subject to a political ban for five years.

She sought and was denied permission from the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to spend a holiday in Hong Kong earlier this month.

Her brother, former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, had been earlier sentenced in absentia to two years in jail by the Supreme Court on charges of abusing powers over a Bangkok land grab scandal.

Thaksin, who remains in exile, was toppled in the 2006 coup and banned from politics for five years, besides the court verdict. Enditem