BANGKOK: A Thai court on Thursday ordered self-exiled former premier Yingluck Shinawatra to pay 10 billion baht ($305 million) in damages over a botched rice pledging scheme that saw her sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison for negligence. Yingluck, one of four members of the billionaire Shinawatra family to have served as prime minister, has been living overseas to avoid jail for failing to prevent corruption in the rice scheme, which paid farmers up to 50 percent above market prices and caused massive losses to the state.
The program, a flagship policy of her populist Pheu Thai party, cost the state billions of dollars and led to millions of tons of rice going unsold. Thailand is the world’s second-largest rice exporter.
Thursday’s ruling was on Yingluck’s appeal against a previous order to pay 35 billion baht ($1.07 billion) in damages to the finance ministry.
“The accused performed duties with gross negligence that caused damage to the state and therefore must pay compensation,” the Supreme Administrative Court said, adding the previous order exceeded the legal threshold of her responsibility and was unlawful. Yingluck 57, came to power in 2011 after a landslide election victory and resigned just days before her government was ousted in a coup in 2014. She is the aunt of current Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and younger sister of former premier and political heavyweight Thaksin Shinawatra. Thursday’s verdict comes less than two years after her family’s Pheu Thai party returned to power after a decade in the political wilderness, coinciding with influential brother Thaksin coming home after 15 years in self-exile to avoid jail.
The Shinawatras have consistently denied wrongdoing and have long maintained they have been victims of political vendettas by powerful figures in the conservative establishment and royalist military.
Yingluck on Thursday said the order to pay 10 billion baht was excessive.
“Even if I repaid it my entire life, it would never be enough,” she said on social media. “I will continue to demand and fight for justice.”
Thai ex-PM Yingluck ordered to pay $305 million in damages over rice scheme
https://arab.news/6hy8q
Thai ex-PM Yingluck ordered to pay $305 million in damages over rice scheme
- Yingluck is one of four members of the billionaire Shinawatra family to have served as prime minister
- She has been living overseas to avoid jail for failing to prevent corruption in the rice scheme
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un signals continued missile development in next 5 years
- Kim said “the country’s missile and shell production sector is of paramount importance in bolstering war deterrent,” according to KCNA
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signaled the country will continue to develop missiles in the next five years, as he visited major munitions enterprises in the last quarter of 2025, state media KCNA said on Friday.
Kim said “the country’s missile and shell production sector is of paramount importance in bolstering war deterrent,” according to KCNA.
Kim ratified draft documents for the modernization of major munitions enterprises to be submitted to a key party congress expected to be held in early 2026, KCNA said, which will set a development plan for North Korea for the next five years.
The KCNA report follows Thursday’s reveal of Kim overseeing the construction of an 8,700-ton nuclear-powered submarine with his daughter, a potential heir, and the test-firing of long-range surface-to-air missiles.
