Bangkok--Thailand's ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra insisted on her innocence Tuesday at the start of a trial that could see her jailed for a decade, part of what observers say is a vendetta against her family.
It is the latest legal move against Yingluck -- sister of fugitive billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra -- whose administration was toppled in a military coup nearly a year ago.
Bail was set at 30 million baht ($900,000), a figure the country's Supreme Court, which is hearing the case, said was the highest ever demanded of a defendant in Thai history.
Shortly after Yingluck's court appearance, junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha raised the possibility of holding a referendum on a contentious new constitution he says is vital to bridging the nation's trenchant political divide.
But any plebiscite -- in a nation where political gatherings are still banned by the military -- would "postpone the roadmap" for elections slated for early 2016, Prayut told reporters.
Around 50 supporters gathered outside the courthouse on the northern outskirts of Bangkok including more than a dozen members of Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party, a rare public act of defiance of the junta.
A guilty conviction for Yingluck could deliver a hammer blow to the political dominance of her family, but it also risks stirring up their grassroots "Red Shirt" supporters who have remained largely inactive since the military took over.
"I am confident that I am innocent," Yingluck told reporters outside the courthouse.
The ousted premier is accused of criminal negligence over a populist rice subsidy scheme, which paid farmers in the rural Shinawatra heartland twice the market rate for their crop.
She is not accused of personal corruption but of failing to prevent alleged graft within the programme, which cost Thailand billions of dollars and galvanised protests against her elected government prior to last May's coup. The charge carries up to 10 years in jail.
During the brief hearing, Yingluck spoke only to plead not guilty. The court ordered her not to leave Thailand without written permission, and scheduled the next hearing for July 21.
AFP
