Interpol seeks more information on Yingluck
Interpol has contacted the Royal Thai Police asking for additional information concerning former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s flight to accompany their consideration on whether to issue a “blue notice” to help find her, said Pol Colonel Krisana Pattanacharoen, deputy Thai Police spokesman.
Krisana said the international police agency did not say whether or when it would issue the notice as requested by Thai authorities, adding that the information shared with Interpol cannot be revealed.
“What we can do at best is wait, but wait with hopes,” said Krisana.
An Interpol blue notice calls for a joint effort by international authorities to collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a crime.
The police spokesman insisted that the police have not been dragging their feet on the case, but have been pursuing every means of finding Yingluck, whose exact whereabouts remain unknown. Once a blue notice is issued against her, Thai police will then be able to ask for a red notice, which is effectively an international arrest warrant, he said.
It has been established that Yingluck fled the country shortly before the court was due to read a verdict against her in a dereliction case over her government’s rice-pledging scheme.
She left via the eastern land border before August 25, and then went to Dubai and the United Kingdom. On September 27, she was sentenced in absentia to five years in jail without suspension.