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Thai PM knows where Yingluck is but won't say yet

This article is more than 12 months old

BANGKOK Thailand's junta leader said yesterday that he knows where ousted former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra is but will not disclose her location until after a verdict is delivered later this week in her negligence trial.

Yingluck disappeared from Thailand shortly before a Supreme Court verdict scheduled on Aug 25. Her lawyer said she was ill with an ear problem and could not appear in court.

"I know, but I won't say yet," Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former army chief who toppled Yingluck's government in a 2014 coup, told reporters after a weekly Cabinet meeting.

"I'll tell you where she is after Sep 27. I have spies," he said, adding that to his knowledge Yingluck has not sought asylum abroad.

A verdict is to be delivered today. Yingluck faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of negligence over a costly rice subsidy scheme that helped to bring her to power in a 2011 general election.

Yingluck, who was active on social media, has not commented publicly since disappearing from public view last month.

Her Puea Thai Party has said that the party does not know where she is.

Reuters reported last month that she had fled to Dubai, where her brother and former prime minister Thaksin has a home and lives in self-imposed exile to avoid a 2008 jail sentence for corruption.

Thai authorities investigating how she escaped said last week they have questioned three police officers who admitted to helping Yingluck flee. - REUTERS

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