Thailand’s former prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, has fled to Singapore after failing to appear in court to hear the verdict of a trial that could see her jailed for 10 years, her supporters have claimed.
Ms Yingluck, who became Thailand's first female prime minister in 2011, is accused of criminal negligence after overseeing a scheme that subsidised rice farmers, with growers paid twice the market rate for their crop.
It led to huge stockpiles of rice and damaged the country’s rice exports, leading to allegations of corruption and wasted money.
She has pleaded innocent and rejected the charges as politically motivated.
She had been due in court on Friday to hear the verdict but failed to appear, prompting the Supreme Court to issue an arrest warrant.
Judge Cheep Chulamon said he had been informed by Ms Yingluck’s lawyer that she was unable to attend becase she was suffering from earache.
“The court does not believe she is sick... and has decided to issue an arrest warrant," Mr Chulamon said.
The hearing has been postponed until 27 September.
A senior source in Ms Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party later told AFP she was now "likely in Singapore”.
The unnamed official added that it was “impossible she left without the military green light”.
Prayut Chan-o-cha, the incumbent Thai Prime Minister and head of the military junta, denied knowing her whereabouts but said it was possible she had already crossed by land into Cambodia. He ordered border checks to be increased.
Former Thai minister Boonsong Teriyapirom was jailed on Friday in connection with the same rice subsidy scheme.
His unexpectedly harsh 42-year prison sentence was touted as a possible reason for Ms Yingluck’s apparent disappearance.
Thousands of Ms Yingluck’s supporters, predominantly rural and working class voters, had gathered outside the court, along with hundreds of police.
The trial is the latest chapter in a decade-long struggle by the nation's elite minority to crush the powerful political machine founded by Ms Yingluck's brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 coup.
Mr Thaksin has lived in Dubai since fleeing a corruption conviction he says was politically motivated.
He is a highly polarising figure in Thailand, and his overthrow triggered years of upheaval and division.
The Shinawatras remain popular, especially in their rural heartlands in the north and north-east, but are reviled by much of the Bangkok elite who see them as corrupt.
In 2015, Ms Yingluck was retroactively impeached for her role in the project, receiving a five-year ban from politics.
