Serbia grants citizenship to Thailand’s fugitive ex-PM Yingluck Shinawatra

The Serbian government has granted citizenship to Thailand’s former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who fled her homeland in 2017 to avoid negligence charges, Reuters reports.

Shinawatra, 52, went to Dubai and joined her brother Thaksin, another former Thai prime minister who also fled his country, in 2006, to avoid a prison sentence for corruption.

The government in Belgrade decided to grant Yingluck citizenship on June 27, citing a legal provision that “a foreign citizen can also be granted Serbian citizenship if that is in line with the country’s interests.” The Official Gazette notice about the decision was published in local media on Thursday, without further explanation.

Yingluck, whose family had dominated Thai politics for more than 15 years, pleaded innocent to charges related to rice-buying policies that she implemented after taking over as the country’s first female premier in 2011.