THE SUPREME Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders yesterdays ruled unanimously to hand down a five-year jail sentence to fugitive former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra in absentia in the case concerning her government’s controversial rice-pledging scheme after the verdict had been delayed for one month.

A Thai general, police officers and local politicians were among dozens jailed for human trafficking on Wednesday, many handed decades-long sentences, at a mass trial exposing official complicity in the grim trade in Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants.