Yingluck flight won’t affect probe, says anti-graft panel

Bangkok: The anti-graft agency’s chief has expressed his confidence that former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s escape won’t adversely affect ongoing investigations in other cases against her and her fellow former Cabinet members.

National Anti- Corruption Commission (NACC) president Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit said that the agency’s investigators were still working on other cases in which Yingluck and her former Cabinet members have been accused.

“We are questioning witnesses and collecting facts to make our cases complete. All of these are still continuing normally. Yingluck’s escape in the rice-pledging case certainly will not affect our work in other cases,” Watcharapol said.

He added that there was no need to summon the fugitive former prime minister for questioning, as there were other people accused along with her.

The NACC chief said his agency would turn to interrogating those people and therefore its investigation would not have to be put on hold due to Yingluck’s disappearance.

Yingluck failed to show up for her verdict reading at the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders on Aug 25.

Authorities have failed to locate her and police have been unable to say clearly whether Yingluck has left the country.

The former prime minister is accused of negligence in a case stemming from her government’s corruption-plagued rice-pledging scheme.

The court issued a warrant for her arrest and rescheduled the verdict reading to Sept 27.

Her commerce minister, Boonsong Teriyapirom, and his former deputy, Poom Sarapol, were sentenced to 42 years and 36 years in jail, respectively, for malfeasance, in connection with fraudulent deals to sell rice from state stockpiles to a company posing as an arm of the Chinese government.

Meanwhile, most respondents to an opinion survey said Yingluck opted to flee because she was afraid of being sentenced to imprisonment, and they said the government should expedite its efforts to bring her back for prosecution. — The Nation/Asia News Network