Thai court sentences ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra to 5 years, in absentia

Thai court sentences Yingluck Shinawatra to 5 years — (Image credit: Alisa Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images)

On Wednesday, Thailand's supreme court found former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra guilty of negligence and sentenced her in absentia to five years in jail. In late August, Yingluck did not show up in court for the verdict in her two-year-long trial, and she is believed to have fled the country, probably to Dubai, where her brother Thanksin Shinawatra, also an ousted Thai prime minister, lives in self-imposed exile to avoid serving his own sentence for alleged corruption. Yingluck claims that the charges against her, tied to a money-losing rice subsidy program, are politically motivated. She was ousted in 2014 before a military coup, then retroactively impeached in 2015. She and her brother are still popular in rural Thailand.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.