Negligence of duty trial starts against Yingluck

Thailand's ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra insisted on her innocence Tuesday at the start of a trial that could see her jailed for a decade, part of what observers say is a vendetta against her family.

It is the latest legal move against Yingluck -- sister of fugitive billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra -- whose administration was toppled in a military coup nearly a year ago.

Meanwhile, Thailand's junta delayed a general election by at least six months yesterday, hours after Yingluck was banned from traveling overseas, raising questions about a promised return to democracy.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, installed after the military seized power in last May's coup, told reporters that the polls would take place in August 2016 at the earliest to allow for a referendum on the new constitution.

Around 50 supporters gathered outside the courthouse on the northern outskirts of Bangkok including more than a dozen members of Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party, a rare public act of defiance of the junta.

A guilty conviction for Yingluck could deliver a hammer blow to the political dominance of her family, but it also risks stirring up their grassroots "Red Shirt" supporters who have remained largely inactive since the military took over.

"I am confident that I am innocent," Yingluck told reporters outside the courthouse.

The ousted premier is accused of criminal negligence over a populist rice subsidy scheme, which paid farmers in the rural Shinawatra heartland twice the market rate for their crop.

She is not accused of personal corruption but of failing to prevent alleged graft within the programme, which cost Thailand billions of dollars and galvanised protests against her elected government prior to last May's coup. The charge carries up to 10 years in jail.