BANGKOK/DUBAI: Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was in Dubai but left for London on September 11, a Reuters source in the UAE said on Thursday.
The source spoke after Prayut Chan-O-Cha’s, the leader of Thailand’s military junta said that Yingluck was in Dubai, having fled there last month to avoid being jailed over a rice subsidy scheme that lost billions of dollars.
Prayut’s clear comments on Yingluck’s whereabouts came a month after she ghosted out off Thailand, ducking a court ruling over charges she failed to stop graft and losses in a costly rice subsidy policy by her government.
On Wednesday Thailand’s top court sentenced her in absentia to five years’ jail, pulling the plug on her political career.
She maintained her innocence throughout the case, which she said was a political fit-up sculpted by her family’s enemies among the arch-royalist army and elite.
“I learned from the foreign ministry that now she is in Dubai,” said Prayut, who toppled Yingluck’s government from office in a 2014 coup.
Once a fresh arrest warrant is issued, Thai authorities may proceed with extradition efforts, he told reporters.
Yingluck’s older brother Thaksin, also a former premier, has a home in Dubai.
The 2001 rise of Thaksin, a billionaire former cop with a magic touch at the polls, rattled Thailand’s establishment and the country has since seesawed between elected governments and coups.
He fled Thailand in 2008 to avoid jail on a graft conviction he says was politically motivated.
Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, a key architect of the coup that took down Yingluck’s government, said “it’s good she is in Dubai.”
“Although don’t have extradition treaty … Dubai officials informed our foreign ministry that they will not allow Yingluck to make any political move.”
The 50-year-old, who still has the right to appeal, has not appeared in public since pulling the vanishing act on August 25, her initial ruling date.
The Shinawatra siblings lie at the center of a political battle that has chewed at Thailand for more than a decade.
Shinawatra-backed parties have dominated electoral politics since 2001, enraging Bangkok’s military-allied elite.
Unable to beat the Shinawatras at the polls, their rivals have turned to court rulings and coups to repeatedly knock their governments from power.
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Fugitive former Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra has fled Dubai
Fugitive former Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra has fled Dubai
Australia announces gun buyback as swimmers mourn Bondi shooting victims
- Australia will use a sweeping buyback scheme to “get guns off our streets,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Friday as hundreds plunged into the ocean to honor Bondi Beach shooting victims
SYDNEY: Australia will use a sweeping buyback scheme to “get guns off our streets,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Friday as hundreds plunged into the ocean to honor Bondi Beach shooting victims.
Sajid Akram and his son Naveed are accused of opening fire on a Jewish festival at the famed surf beach on Sunday, killing 15 people in one of Australia’s deadliest mass shootings.
Albanese vowed to toughen laws that allowed 50-year-old Sajid to own six high-powered rifles.
“There is no reason someone living in the suburbs of Sydney needed this many guns,” he said.
Australia would pay gun owners to surrender “surplus, newly banned and illegal firearms.”
It would be the largest gun buyback since 1996, when Australia cracked down on firearms in the wake of a shooting that killed 35 people at Port Arthur.
Australia will remember those slain at Bondi with a national day of reflection, the prime minister said.
Albanese urged Australians to light candles at 6:47 p.m. (0747 GMT) on Sunday, December 21 — “exactly one week since the attack unfolded.”
High alert
Sydney remains on high alert almost a week on from the shootings.
Armed police released seven men from custody Friday, a day after detaining them on a tip they may have been plotting a “violent act” at Bondi Beach.
Police said there was no established link with the alleged Bondi gunmen and “no immediate safety risk to the community.”
Many hundreds returned to the ocean off Bondi Beach on Friday in another gesture to honor the dead.
Swimmers and surfers paddled into a circle as they bobbed in the gentle morning swell, splashing water and roaring with emotion.
“They slaughtered innocent victims, and today I’m swimming out there and being part of my community again to bring back the light,” security consultant Jason Carr told AFP.
“We’re still burying bodies. But I just felt it was important,” the 53-year-old said.
“I’m not going to let someone so evil, someone so dark, stop me from doing what I do and what I enjoy doing.”
Carole Schlessinger, a 58-year-old chief executive of a children’s charity, said there was a “beautiful energy” at the ocean gathering.
“To be together is such an important way of trying to deal with what’s going on,” she told AFP.
“It was really lovely to be part of it. I personally am feeling very numb. I’m feeling super angry. I’m feeling furious.”
Heroes
Meanwhile, a married couple who were shot and killed as they tried to stop the gunmen were laid to rest at a Jewish funeral home.
Bondi locals Boris and Sofia Gurman were among the first killed as they tried to wrestle Sajid to the ground.
“The final moments of their lives they faced with courage, selflessness and love,” rabbi Yehoram Ulman told mourners.
“They were, in every sense of the word, heroes.”
Father Sajid was killed in a gunfight with police, but his 24-year-old son Naveed survived.
The unemployed bricklayer has been charged with 15 counts of murder, an act of terrorism, and dozens of other serious crimes.
Authorities believe the pair drew inspiration from the Daesh group.
Australian police are investigating whether the pair met with Islamist extremists during a visit to the Philippines weeks before the shooting.
Sajid Akram and his son Naveed are accused of opening fire on a Jewish festival at the famed surf beach on Sunday, killing 15 people in one of Australia’s deadliest mass shootings.
Albanese vowed to toughen laws that allowed 50-year-old Sajid to own six high-powered rifles.
“There is no reason someone living in the suburbs of Sydney needed this many guns,” he said.
Australia would pay gun owners to surrender “surplus, newly banned and illegal firearms.”
It would be the largest gun buyback since 1996, when Australia cracked down on firearms in the wake of a shooting that killed 35 people at Port Arthur.
Australia will remember those slain at Bondi with a national day of reflection, the prime minister said.
Albanese urged Australians to light candles at 6:47 p.m. (0747 GMT) on Sunday, December 21 — “exactly one week since the attack unfolded.”
High alert
Sydney remains on high alert almost a week on from the shootings.
Armed police released seven men from custody Friday, a day after detaining them on a tip they may have been plotting a “violent act” at Bondi Beach.
Police said there was no established link with the alleged Bondi gunmen and “no immediate safety risk to the community.”
Many hundreds returned to the ocean off Bondi Beach on Friday in another gesture to honor the dead.
Swimmers and surfers paddled into a circle as they bobbed in the gentle morning swell, splashing water and roaring with emotion.
“They slaughtered innocent victims, and today I’m swimming out there and being part of my community again to bring back the light,” security consultant Jason Carr told AFP.
“We’re still burying bodies. But I just felt it was important,” the 53-year-old said.
“I’m not going to let someone so evil, someone so dark, stop me from doing what I do and what I enjoy doing.”
Carole Schlessinger, a 58-year-old chief executive of a children’s charity, said there was a “beautiful energy” at the ocean gathering.
“To be together is such an important way of trying to deal with what’s going on,” she told AFP.
“It was really lovely to be part of it. I personally am feeling very numb. I’m feeling super angry. I’m feeling furious.”
Heroes
Meanwhile, a married couple who were shot and killed as they tried to stop the gunmen were laid to rest at a Jewish funeral home.
Bondi locals Boris and Sofia Gurman were among the first killed as they tried to wrestle Sajid to the ground.
“The final moments of their lives they faced with courage, selflessness and love,” rabbi Yehoram Ulman told mourners.
“They were, in every sense of the word, heroes.”
Father Sajid was killed in a gunfight with police, but his 24-year-old son Naveed survived.
The unemployed bricklayer has been charged with 15 counts of murder, an act of terrorism, and dozens of other serious crimes.
Authorities believe the pair drew inspiration from the Daesh group.
Australian police are investigating whether the pair met with Islamist extremists during a visit to the Philippines weeks before the shooting.
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