Ex-PM Yingluck ditched phones before escape

Fugitive former premier Yingluck Shinawatra discarded her mobile phones and stopped travelling in her usual vehicles in the days before last week's dramatic escape, Thailand's army chief said yesterday, as her party vowed to fight on.

Yingluck, whose government was toppled by the military in 2014, staged a disappearing act before a scheduled court judgement last Friday in a criminal negligence trial.

She faced up to ten years in prison and a lifetime ban from politics if convicted. But instead she was a no-show, with junta and party sources saying she had fled abroad.

Thailand's junta has come under fire from some conservative allies over Yingluck's disappearance, with many questioning how the authoritarian regime could have let her flee given that she was heavily monitored.

Army chief General Chalermchai Sitthisad gave a lengthy defence yesterday, which offered insights into how military intelligence kept track of Yingluck and how she might have slipped the net.

"As of now we learnt that she abandoned all of her phones and changed her cars so it was hard to trace her using the same methods we did before," he told reporters, confirming military intelligence had previously used electronic and physical surveillance.