Yingluck Shinawatra was convicted in absentia after courts determined she used government funds to buy rice from farmers at a price 50 percent higher than the global market price.
Shinawatra’s intention was to raise the market value of Thai rice. Instead, Vietnam replaced Thailand as the world's leading rice distributer.
Thai prosecutors determined Shinawatra was guilty because they saw her program as a way to win voter loyalty in rural parts of the country using state funds.
Protests across Thailand broke out shortly after the program went awry and Shinawatra's government was ousted as a result in 2014. The military later took over in a coup.
Courts led by the country's military government were originally supposed to deliver a verdict regarding the rice program a month ago, but Shinawatra never showed up to the hearing. Her lawyers have no idea where she is.
Shinawatra belongs to a dynastic political family that has ruled Thailand via several incarnations of the same party. The first was founded by Shinawatra's brother who also currently lives in exile for graft allegations he claims were politically motivated. These parties, since their inception, have won every Thai election since 2001 and remain the strongest opposition to the current military government.
