Yes, it’s her: Thai foreign minister says fugitive former PM Yingluck is in London
Thailand’s former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who fled the country to avoid being sentenced to jail over a rice subsidy scheme that lost billions of dollars, is in Britain, Thailand’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.
His comments come after two photographs purporting to be of Yingluck were widely shared on social media.
One shows Yingluck wearing a long white coat and blue scarf as she poses with a woman in a red coat. The photo was apparently taken outside London’s Harrods department store. The other allegedly shows Yingluck at London’s Westfield shopping centre.
Thai police said they have verified the photograph of Yingluck outside Harrods and have confirmed Yingluck’s identity. They have yet to confirm the identity of the woman in the photograph allegedly taken at Westfield.
Reuters has not independently verified either photo.
Yingluck was sentenced in September in absentia to five years in prison for mismanaging the rice scheme.
Thailand’s Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai told reporters in Bangkok on Tuesday that Yingluck was in London and that Thai authorities were in touch with their British counterparts to try to locate her.
“We knew about this since September. Britain’s foreign minister told us Yingluck was in London, England,” Don told reporters. “We have communicated consistently but we haven’t found her.”
He declined to comment specifically on whether Thailand would seek Yingluck’s extradition. Thailand and the United Kingdom have an extradition treaty.
The British embassy in Bangkok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Yingluck’s whereabouts.
