BANGKOK: Thailand has revoked the passports of ousted premier Yingluck Shinawatra, who has yet to be seen in public since she slipped out of the country before the verdict in her negligence trial, officials said Tuesday.
The former prime minister, whose elected government was toppled in a 2014 coup, has not been seen or heard from since she stunned the kingdom by failing to turn up for the Supreme Court verdict in late August.
She was later sentenced to five years in prison in absentia for failing to stop graft in a government rice policy — a case lambasted by her supporters as part of a broader junta effort to drive the ex-premier’s family out of politics.
“All of Yingluck’s passports have been revoked now,” Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai told reporters Tuesday.
Yingluck had four Thai passports, two personal and two diplomatic, according to authorities.
Yingluck’s elder brother Thaksin, who was ousted as prime minister in a 2006 coup, has been living in self-exile for years to avoid a graft conviction.
He has a home in Dubai and junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha said in late September that Yingluck was also in the emirate.
While her current whereabouts remain unconfirmed, there are widespread reports the former premier is seeking asylum in Britain.
“I don’t know (where she is),” Prayut told reporters Tuesday.
“What’s important is that the country she’s residing must confirm her location with us,” he added.
The move comes after the expiry of a deadline for Yingluck to appeal against the verdict, making her return to Thailand highly unlikely.
Analysts believe the junta likely cut a backroom deal with the politician to whisk her out of the country — a charge the generals deny.
The Shinawatras are wildly popular in Thailand’s rural heartlands, where voters wooed by their welfare schemes have helped them dominate elections for the past decade.
But they are loathed by Bangkok’s traditional army-allied elite, who have branded them as corrupt opportunists and repeatedly cut down their governments with coups, court rulings and protests.
The ruling junta recently vowed to hold elections in November 2018, though a tight ban on political activities remains in place.
Elections will not restore the same level of democracy the kingdom enjoyed before the coup.
Under the junta’s new charter elected politicians will be straitjacketed by an appointed Upper House and requirements to stick to a 20-year master plan.
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Thailand revokes passports of exiled former PM Yingluck
Thailand revokes passports of exiled former PM Yingluck
Colombia plane crash kills 15 people, including congressman
- Diogenes Quintero was a renowned human rights defender in the troubled border region with Venezuela
- The aircraft’s final contact with air traffic control came minutes after takeoff, state-owned airline says
BOGOTA: A small plane crashed Wednesday in a rural area of Norte de Santander province in northeast Colombia, killing all 15 people on board including a member of congress, authorities said.
Satena, the state-owned airline that operated the flight, said local officials in the community of Curasica notified authorities about where the plane had gone down and a rescue team was deployed to “assess the condition of the passengers.”
Colombia’s Transportation Ministry later released a statement saying that “once the aircraft was located on site, authorities regrettably confirmed that there were no survivors.”
The aircraft, which has a registration number of HK4709, took off at 11:42 a.m. local time from the airport in Cucuta, the department’s capital, bound for Ocana, a municipality surrounded by mountains, on a flight that typically lasts about 40 minutes.
The aircraft’s final contact with air traffic control came minutes after takeoff, according to a statement released by Satena.
Officials did not provide a cause for the crash, but said there would be an investigation.
The small plane was carrying two crew members and 13 passengers, including Diogenes Quintero, 36, a member of the House of Representatives for Catatumbo, the airline said. Carlos Salcedo, a social leader who was running for Congress, was also among the victims.
Quintero was a renowned human rights defender in the troubled border region with Venezuela, where he was from and where the accident occurred.
A lawyer by profession, he was elected in 2022 as one of 16 representatives in the lower chamber to represent the more than 9 million victims of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict. The seats were created as part of a landmark 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the country’s largest guerrilla group known as the FARC.
His party, the U Party, expressed their remorse for his death and said he was “a leader committed to his region, with a firm vocation for service.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said via social media: “I am deeply saddened by these deaths. My heartfelt condolences to their families. May they rest in peace.”
Satena, the state-owned airline that operated the flight, said local officials in the community of Curasica notified authorities about where the plane had gone down and a rescue team was deployed to “assess the condition of the passengers.”
Colombia’s Transportation Ministry later released a statement saying that “once the aircraft was located on site, authorities regrettably confirmed that there were no survivors.”
The aircraft, which has a registration number of HK4709, took off at 11:42 a.m. local time from the airport in Cucuta, the department’s capital, bound for Ocana, a municipality surrounded by mountains, on a flight that typically lasts about 40 minutes.
The aircraft’s final contact with air traffic control came minutes after takeoff, according to a statement released by Satena.
Officials did not provide a cause for the crash, but said there would be an investigation.
The small plane was carrying two crew members and 13 passengers, including Diogenes Quintero, 36, a member of the House of Representatives for Catatumbo, the airline said. Carlos Salcedo, a social leader who was running for Congress, was also among the victims.
Quintero was a renowned human rights defender in the troubled border region with Venezuela, where he was from and where the accident occurred.
A lawyer by profession, he was elected in 2022 as one of 16 representatives in the lower chamber to represent the more than 9 million victims of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict. The seats were created as part of a landmark 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the country’s largest guerrilla group known as the FARC.
His party, the U Party, expressed their remorse for his death and said he was “a leader committed to his region, with a firm vocation for service.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said via social media: “I am deeply saddened by these deaths. My heartfelt condolences to their families. May they rest in peace.”
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