Ex-Thai premier to fight fine over rice subsidy case

Former Thai Premier Yingluck Shinawatra on Friday vowed to fight the current government's demand for her to pay $1 billion in compensation for a loss-ridden rice subsidy programme.

Yingluck, who appeared for a hearing in the Supreme Court, said she will use all legal channels to fight for justice in the case, Xinhua news agency reported.

Yingluck said she had been denied justice since the lawsuit was lodged in the court and pledged to fight a legal battle by filing a case in the Administrative Court.

Yingluck was charged with criminal negligence over the rice subsidy scheme.

Shortly after her government was overthrown in the 2014 coup, she was retroactively impeached and banned from politics for five years.

The rice subsidy scheme was a policy engineered by Yingluck's brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 coup.

Under the plan, the Thai government bought rice from farmers at a fixed rate, sometimes up to 50 per cent higher than global market prices.

--IANS

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