Bangkok (AP) — Thailand’s foreign minister said Tuesday that former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who fled the country last year to evade a prison sentence, is in Britain, after photos surfaced online apparently showing her in London.
Yingluck was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison on Sept. 27 for negligence in instituting the money-losing rice subsidy program. She fled Thailand before the verdict and has called the case against her politically motivated.
She has not been seen in public since fleeing, but it had been generally assumed that Yingluck was in Dubai or London. Her brother, ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, maintains residences in both cities.
Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai told reporters Tuesday that a visiting British government minister informed Thai officials that Yingluck has been in London since September.
The confirmation of Yingluck’s whereabouts came after several photographs of her appeared on social media in the past few weeks, including one apparently taken with another woman outside Harrods department store in London.
Don said the government has not made a decision on whether to ask Britain to extradite Yingluck. “We have to do a 360-degree assessment of the situation first,” he said.
