Yingluck's bank accounts frozen

This article is more than 12 months old

Jul 26, 2017 06:00 am

BANGKOK Thai authorities have frozen seven bank accounts belonging to ex-premier Yingluck Shinawatra over a $1 billion fine she faces for her administration's controversial rice subsidy scheme, her lawyer said yesterday.

The move is seen as unprecedented because it financially sanctions an elected leader for a government policy and it is the latest in a barrage of legal battles she has had to fight since she was booted from office.

Thailand's first female prime minister, whose government was toppled in a 2014 coup, is already facing up to a decade in jail for allegedly failing to stop graft in the subsidy programme that targeted her party's rural farming base.

She was retroactively impeached soon after the coup, a move that banned her from politics for five years. - AFP