Roundup: Lawsuit against ex-Thai premier Yingluck accepted by supreme court

The Thai Supreme Court on Thursday accepted a criminal lawsuit filed against former Thai leader Yingluck Shinawatra.

The first hearing in court for the case involving duty- negligence charges against the deposed premier is scheduled for May 19.

According to the Thai law, the defendant needs to appear in court during the first hearing, otherwise the case cannot be proceeded in court and consequently become null and void.

Yingluck, ousted in last May's coup by the then-army chief Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha who is now the prime minister of the country, has been formally charged by public prosecutors of failing to combat alleged corruption involving the previous government's rice subsidy program.

Under the populist program, implemented nationwide over the last few years, farmers had sold their rice to government agencies for an average of 500 U.S. dollars a ton.

But some of the purchased rice had been allegedly "stolen" and traded without the knowledge of the government while a large volume had been left rotten at the rented warehouses.

The alleged failures on the part of the former lady leader to fight such graft incurred an estimated 18 billion U.S. dollars in losses of the taxpayer's money, according to the Office of Attorney General which had submitted the case to the Supreme Court judges in charge of criminal lawsuits against politicians.

Nonetheless, Yingluck has dismissed allegations that she had neglected her duty to stop the alleged corruption and maintained that she had assigned government officials to investigate the graft-riddled rice program.

Her lawyers earlier dismissed hearsay that she might possibly follow suit of her brother, former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra who had evaded court proceedings on his own case involving a Bangkok land grab scandal nearly a decade ago.

Thaksin, who was also ousted in a 2006 coup and has remained in exile overseas, was sentenced in absentia by the Supreme Court to two years in jail on power-abusing charges.

If found guilty as charged, Yingluck might possibly be imprisoned for a maximum of 10 years due to her rice subsidy fiascos.

She had already been impeached by the National Legislative Assembly. The impeachment resulted in her being currently banned from politics for a five years. Endi