Tanasak, in Sydney after overseeing a troupe of 56 Khon mask dancers who performed at the Sydney Opera House, was asked by foreign journalists if the government plans to revoke Yingluck’s passport.

Tanasak said: “The Thai government practices the rule of law. As an administration, we can not intervene in the judgment of the court.

“In your country, can you intervene in the court?

“Thailand is the big country and the government gives freedom to citizens. We don’t follow individuals in terms of where they are going or when they leave the country. So we’re following the rule of law. Just as another country.”

An arrest warrant was issued for Yingluck by the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions last Friday after she failed to turn up for the reading of the verdict.

Her negligence case is linked to her then government’s controversial rice-pledging scheme.

The court postponed the reading of the verdict until September 27 and ordered the seizure of Yingluck’s Bt30-million bail.

AMID a flurry of blame, accusations and speculation, authorities remain unable to explain how former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was so easily able to escape justice.

Anti-corruption activist Srisuwan Junya yesterday lodged a petition with the National Anti-Corruption Commission, asking it to investigate the failure of top security officers to prevent Yingluck from fleeing the country.

Srisuwan focused on Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, who oversees security matters, and police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda, accusing them of being negligent in their duties.

Prawit, who is also Defence Minister, said the activist has the right to do so, but reiterated that the authorities had no way to prevent Yingluck from fleeing the country.

“How could the authorities know when and where she would flee? Who would know it?” Prawit said at the Defence Ministry, in response to a reporter who pointed out that the authorities had closely monitored Yingluck’s movements even when she went to temples to make merit. The former premier had always complained that security officials and spies followed her everywhere.

“Yingluck’s escape was unexpected because she earlier always insisted that she would not flee. And there were police in front of her house all the time,” Prawit said.

The authorities still have no official explanation as to how Yingluck failed to show up at the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions last Friday. Her whereabouts since have been the subject of intense speculation by the media, activists and observers.

The court has postponed the verdict delivery to late next month, and has issued an arrest warrant, but nobody has a clear answer as to whether she will return to Thailand.

Police have set up a team to track her, and the relevant agencies have been closely following movements around border areas, including natural land borders. Officers had been instructed to report the results of the operation every five days, deputy national police chief Pol General Srivara Ransibrahmanakul said.

Police in Lat Phrao have been instructed to check all the surveillance cameras around Yingluck’s house as well as her other residences in Bangkok and her hometown of Chiang Mai, but they have failed to find her, Srivara said.

Speculation denied

According to Srivara, Yingluck was last seen in her Bangkok home at 2pm on Wednesday. Officers from Lat Phrao Police Station, who were responsible for supervising Yingluck’s residence, said other people in the house had confirmed that she no longer lived there.

Royal Thai Police will now seek the cooperation of Interpol to alert police forces in 190 countries around the world about Yingluck’s current legal status.

Media citing unnamed sources reported that she had fled via Cambodia and Singapore to Dubai to join her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who has a home there. The government in Phnom Penh dismissed the report, and authorities in Dubai also said they know nothing about Yingluck’s whereabouts.

Pol Maj-General Apichart Suriboonya, head of the police foreign affairs division, said the police had contacted officials in Cambodia and the United Arab Emirates but had received no information.

Apichart told reporters about normal procedures, saying that Interpol could take “quite some time”. If any member of Interpol located Yingluck, Thai police could seek an international arrest warrant to have her apprehended. However, it would be up to Interpol how the case was conducted.

Like everybody else, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday denied speculation that the National Council for Peace and Order deliberately let Yingluck slip out of the country, saying it was beyond his expectation that she would flee.

“I didn’t think it would happen. In the morning [of the verdict], I still thought that she would go to court, following the procedure. I respected her,” Prayut said.

Bombarded with questions about the incident, Prayut said furiously: “Who would let her flee? How come, why did you think like this?”

Prayut said he had instructed security officers to find out how the former premier left the country. They would also look at flaws in the process in order to prevent it happening again.

Prayut, who is also the head of the junta, said it was difficult for the authorities to follow Yingluck |before the court had made its judgment because they respected her privacy.

Officers had been criticised over their possible violation of human rights, Prayut noted, adding that that had made everything difficult.

Prayut said he didn’t want people to blame the security officers, saying that the media should tone down its criticism. It would be “insane” if officers intentionally let her flee, he said.

According to the High Court, Boonsong and 19 others violated multiple sections of the Criminal Code, anti-graft and state auction laws by implementing four bogus government-to-government (G-to-G) rice export deals to private companies that sold them to a foreign country, resulting in Bt16.9-billion financial damage to the state.

According to the court, the sales did not meet the criteria for G-to-G deals and the rice was not shipped to China as claimed by the defendants.

The fake contracts occurred during the previous Yingluck Shinawatra government’s rice-pledging scheme.

More than four million tonnes of government-owned rice, purchased from farmers under the pledging scheme, were sold without auction to Thai private firms at a low price instead of being exported to China as announced by the Commerce Ministry.

Meechai’s suggestion followed a Facebook post by Suranand Vejjajiva, a friend of Boonsong, in which Suranand expressed his sympathy for the ex-minister and wrote that Boonsong had previously refused to disclose crucial details of the bogus G-to-G deals during a private conversation.

According to Suranand, Boonsong insisted that he could not say anything at all with regard to the contracts.

Under the current Constitution, both defendants and plaintiffs could seek an appeal on verdicts delivered by the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders within 30 days regardless of whether there is new evidence or not.

In the fake G-to-G rice case, Boonsong, former deputy commerce minister Phumi Saraphol, senior Commerce Ministry officials and private rice trading firm executives, were sentenced to between 24 and 48 years in prison for violating multiple laws and causing the massive financial damage.

Regarding the possibility of Boonsong’s temporary release while seeking a review of his case, Meechai said such a decision is made by a panel of judges responsible for the case. The judges already rejected Boonsong’s first bail request last Friday due to his lengthy jail term.

Boonsong was ill during the weekend inside Bangkok’s Klongprem central prison, according to his lawyer, Narin Somneuk.

Meanwhile, a lawyer presenting Manas Soiploy, former director-general of the Department of Foreign Trade, who was also sentenced to a long jail term in the fake rice deal, said the High Court will be requested to consider temporary release of Manas and other former senior officials as they seek a review of the verdicts.

Prof Jaroon Yoothong, a specialist in southern poem-writing and performances, said Phaitoon had merely wished to invite people to delve further into what had happened; that is, the ex-PM’s flight as well as the issue of corruption, which are seen as undermining politics.

The writer, he added, had every right like anyone else to express his political views, and it is actually the duty of an artist to work to invite people to delve more into issues of importance.

Phaitoon is good at playing with words, especially in southern poetic expression, and that is why his poem appeared in the way it did, Jaroon stressed.

Yingluck on Friday failed to show up at the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions, which was due to hand down its ruling in the case against her for alleged negligence in regard to the management of her government’s rice-pledging scheme.

Her lawyer cited at the time that her absence was down to her being stricken with Meniere’s disease.

Phaitoon posted a poem on his Facebook page afterwards, in which he referred to the ear disease, which when using a play on words in Thai, can have a sleazy connotation, alluding to a sexual organ.

The end of the poem read: her “ears” (which helped her escape from the scene) were formidable.

The poem has drawn heavy criticism of him on social media. Some people slammed the writer for gender discrimination, while others kick-started an online campaign against him on Change.org.

Phaitoon, meanwhile, remains silent after having removed the post.

Narin Somneuk said Boonsong had visited the prison’s doctor twice during the weekend, for high blood pressure and a sinus infection.

The lawyer is preparing a second attempt to secure his client’s temporary release on bail of Bt30 million, after the Supreme Court rejected a first bail request on Friday.

Boonsong and 19 others were sentenced to jail terms of 24 to 48 years for their roles in bogus government-to-government export deals announced during the Yingluck Shinawatra-led administration’s rice-pledging scheme.

The high court ruled that the defendants had violated multiple laws and caused Bt16.9 billion in financial damages to the state by selling more than 4 million tonnes of government-owned rice at a low price to domestic traders, instead of exporting the rice to China as announced under the fake G-to-G deals.

The Corrections Department said Boonsong’s health condition was not unusual for new prisoners, as he was under stress.

The meeting was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, but it did not touch upon the recent events surrounding ex-premier Yingluck, Kongcheep Tantrawanich said.

First and foremost, security officers would have to find out where she was, the spokesman said, insisting however that while they were working very hard to do so, Yingluck as a former PM deserved respect.

Everything would follow the judicial procedure, Kongcheep stressed.

Meanwhile, General Chalermchai Sitthisard, secretary-general of the National Council for Peace and Order, who chaired a meeting of the NCPO secretariat office on Monday, issued a message via the NCPO’s deputy spokesman, Sirichan Ngathong, that the NCPO was not involved in Yingluck’s apparent flight from the country.

There was no need for the NCPO to resort to any means other than the justice system in this case, he said.

Chalermchai also expressed concern over the fast flow of news and information concerning Yingluck’s disappearance, saying that it could cause confusion.

Officers were trying to get to the bottom of what had happened and he asked that everyone follow the news closely, support the officers in their mission and come forward if they had any information that might help.

The court has the option to read the verdict in Yingluck’s case in absentia, or to instead postpone the reading at their discretion, said Wissanu, a respected legal expert.

The situation is similar to the case against Thanksin Shinawatra involving a lottery scandal, in which the verdict has not been read until now because of his 2008 flight from the country, Wissanu said.

Wissanu said the recent flight of Yingluck had nothing to do with seizure of her assets, which was separately ordered by the Administrative Court.

Yingluck’s lawyer had sought a court injunction against the seizure, but the court did not issue any orders, he said. The authorities could freeze her assets, but would wait for the court’s orders first, he added.

Wissanu said Yingluck would be punished for having fled. To do otherwise would set a bad example for others, he said.

Whether Yingluck would appeal with the Supreme Court is another story, he said.

“I didn’t think it would happen. In the morning [of the verdict], I still thought that she would go to court, following the procedure. I respected her,” Prayut said.

Bombarded with questions about the incident, Prayut said furiously: “Who would let her flee? How come, why did you think like this?”

Prayut said he had instructed security officers to find out how the former premier left of the country. They would also look at flaws in the process to prevent it happening again.

Previously, when it was unclear whether she was guilty or innocent, it was difficult to follow Yingluck around because they respected her privacy, he said.

Officers had been criticised over their possible violation of human rights, Prayut noted, adding that that had made everything difficult.

He didn’t want people to blame the security officers, saying that the media should tone down the criticism. He stressed that it would be “insane” if officers intentionally let her flee.

Asked if he thought that the two fugitive former prime ministers and siblings would work together and make political moves, Prayut said the Thai people should think for themselves in this eventuality.

However, he added there was hardly anything the government could do about the issue, especially when the media gave it so much attention.

While saying he didn’t want to argue with the media, Prayut said he wished the media would lend a helping hand and help make the country peaceful.

Officers now would check with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about Yingluck’s departure, he explained. But if the ministry insisted there were no records, there was hardly anything the government could do, he said.

Prayut said he only learned from the media about Yingluck’s possible whereabouts. The government would try to contact the country in which she was believed to be, he said.

Prayut encouraged anyone with information about the fugitive to come forward and he would help to verify it.

Asked whether Yingluck’s passport would be revoked, Prayut said the correct procedure would be followed. The government would do as much as the law allowed, he said. But he stressed that he wanted the country to be peaceful and have unity.

The Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders early this month acquitted Somchai, his deputy Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, then-police chief Pol General Patcharawat Wongsuwan, and then-Metropolitan police chief Pol Lt-General Suchart Muenkaew.

The four defendants were found not guilty in regard to the police crackdown on yellow-shirt protesters in October 2008 that left two people dead and more than 400 injured.

Veera Somkwamkid, a member of the PAD’s working group to monitor the appeal, said the 30-day appeal deadline was drawing to a close, with just four days left, and the PAD was concerned whether the NACC would appeal the case in time.

Veera claimed that one judge wrote in his minority judgement a clear reason why the defendants should be punished, and there was a great amount of detail about the court deliberation that was worth sharing with the public.

The group suggested the NACC write to the court asking for an extension of the appeal deadline as allowed by the law.

The NACC said it would meet on Tuesday, August 29 to consider the issue.