Four killed in Thailand as gun battles erupt at Bangkok protests
One police officer and three protesters killed in gunfire
Gun battles erupted between Thai police and anti-government protesters in Bangkok on Tuesday and four people were killed and dozens wounded as authorities made their most determined effort yet to clear demonstrators from the streets.
In a day of tangled developments in Thailand’s long-running political crisis, the country’s anti-corruption body announced it was filing charges against Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra relating to a rice subsidy scheme that has fuelled middle-class opposition to her government.
Watch: Bangkok erupts in fatal clashes between police, protesters
The troubled rice scheme, already near collapse, suffered another blow when the Government Savings Bank (GSB) said it was scrapping a loan to a state farm bank that could have been used to prop the scheme up in the face of a revolt by depositors.
The clashes were some of most intense between protesters and security forces since the campaign to unseat Yingluck began in November, and raised the prospect that the army might feel compelled to intervene if the bloodshed worsens.
The protests are the latest instalment of an eight-year political battle broadly pitting the Bangkok middle class and royalist establishment against the poorer, mostly rural supporters of Yingluck and her billionaire brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.