Former Thai PM Yingluck’s passports revoked

Bangkok, Oct 31 (IANS) Thailand has cancelled four passports of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra who fled the country days before a court sentenced her in absentia to five years of imprisonment for negligence, police officials said on Tuesday.

Chayapol Chatchaidech, a member of the special branch police, said that the Foreign Ministry revoked two diplomatic passports and two of Yingluck's personal passports on October 20.

The official explained that the police were not aware of the whereabouts of Yingluck and were yet to receive a response from Interpol, who they had asked to issue a blue notice to help locate and arrest her, Efe news reported.

The Supreme Court had sentenced Yingluck to five years in prison on September 27 over her role in a massive rice subsidy scheme during her term in office (2011-2014).

According to members of the Pheu Thai Party and her family, the former Prime Minister fled to Cambodia before making her way to Dubai and then a few weeks later to London, where she has allegedly asked for political asylum.

Yingluck was removed from office by the Constitutional Court, which found her guilty of abuse of power over the transfer of a senior civil servant, just days before the armed forces staged a coup on May 22, 2014.

The Puea Thai Party, led by Yingluck and founded by her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in another coup in 2006, was voted into power in 2011 with an absolute parliamentary majority.

Thaksin, who has been in self-exile in Dubai since 2008, faces a two-year jail sentence for abuse of power.

Political groups linked to Thaksin have won all elections in Thailand since 2001 with the support from the majority of the rural northeastern and northern regions despite opposition from a large part of the middle and the so-called "elite" classes mainly in the capital Bangkok.