BANGKOK, July 18 (RAPSI) – Thailand’s Anti-Corruption Commission on Friday recommended the Supreme Court’s special board to initiate proceedings against former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra over dereliction of duty for failing to stop the rice subsidy program in 2011-2013.

Some experts speculate that Yingluck, whom the military authorities allowed to travel to Europe this week, would not return to Thailand. But others argue that she will return and fight her case in court, if necessary, because nearly all of her assets are in Thailand.

Ms Yingluck planned to visit Britain and France (Paris), where her elder brother, former PM Thaksin Shinawatra overthrown by the military in 2006, planned to celebrate his 65th birthday on July 26. The Supreme Court’s special board accused Thaksin of insider real estate trading, which made his wife a rich woman, and sentenced him in absentia to two years in prison.

The rice subsidy scheme won Yingluck Shinawatra the votes of millions of farmers in 2011 but was later compromised by reports of corruption and mismanagement. The scheme cost Thailand an estimated 800 billion baht (about $25 billion).