Thai ex-PM Yingluck's passports revoked: police

BANGKOK - Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has revoked passports of former premier Yingluck Shinawatra, said Deputy Police Commissioner General Pol. Gen. Srivara Ransibrahmanakul on Monday.

He confirmed that the foreign ministry has already revoked two diplomatic passports and two general passports of the former premier who failed to show up for a final court verdict and is known to have fled the country since August.

Yingluck is said to have slipped out of Thailand via neighbor Cambodia with the help of a few police officers, leaving the Supreme Court to deliver last month's judgment in her absentia, to the extent that she be otherwise sentenced to five years in prison for alleged duty-negligence and misconduct charges involving a rice subsidy program several years ago.

Pol. Gen. Srivara said the Interpol and Thai authorities abroad have not located Yingluck's whereabouts amid possibilities that she might seek political asylum in Britain.

The Thai authorities have not obtained any confirmed information which might probably involve her movement overseas for the time being, he said.

The deputy police chief has earlier confirmed that Yingluck had flown to Britain from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where she had temporarily stayed after she had slipped out of Thailand two months ago.

Her elder brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, is known to have been taking self-exile in the Middle East city almost a decade ago.