BANGKOK - Fugitive Thai ex-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been spotted in a photo with her brother Thaksin, also a fugitive former prime minister, buying chestnuts in the Chinese capital Beijing.
The photo was published on the Matichon Online website on Saturday afternoon (Feb 10), Thailand's The Nation reported.
The two siblings - who are of Thai-Chinese descent - were buying chestnuts in a mall in Beijing as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations which fall on Feb 16, Matichon reported.
Thaksin's youngest daughter, Paetongtarn, posted two photos of her father on her Instagram not long after the other pictures were released on the Matichon website.
"My dad wishes all Thais a happy Chinese New Year from Beijing in advance. Although we are far away from each other, I always miss you, don't you know?" Paetongtarn wrote on her Instagram account, @ingshin21, on Saturday.
This was the third time Yingluck has been seen in public since she fled the country in late August. Photos of Yingluck, who was spotted twice in London, were published on social media late last December and early January this year.
After those photos were circulated, Thai authorities confirmed last month that the fugitive ex-premier has been in London since September and she possibly carries the passport of another country, as her four Thai passports have been revoked. But they said they did not know about Yingluck's status in Britain or whether she had applied for political asylum or a visa to remain there.
Yingluck fled the country a few days before the Supreme Court was set to rule in August in a case against her of dereliction of duty over her government's rice-pledging scheme. She reportedly fled to London after stopping in Dubai.
On September 27, the court sentenced her in absentia to five years in jail without suspension for malfeasance of duty.
Thai agencies have failed to locate her even though they have asked the international police agency, Interpol, to help.
Thaksin has been living in exile to avoid a 2008 jail sentence for corruption and has a home in Dubai.
