Who gave Thailand’s ex-PM Yingluck Shinawatra a Cambodian passport?

Officials insist Thailand’s former leader Yingluck Shinawatra hasn’t been given a Cambodian passport

So how she used one to register a company in Hong Kong is a mystery that points to the ‘highest levels’, observers say

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Thailand’s former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:04pm, 26 Jan 2019Updated: 3:07pm, 26 Jan 2019

The news that Thailand’s former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra is in possession of a Cambodian passport poses a troubling question for many of her new-found compatriots: who gave it to her? The self-exiled leader, who fled Thailand in August 2017 before being sentenced to prison on what she says are politically motivated charges, used a Cambodian passport to register as the sole director of a Hong Kong company incorporated in August last year – as revealed by the South China Morning Post.

But Phnom Penh has denied that Yingluck holds a Cambodian passport and observers question whether there has been a royal decree conferring citizenship on her – something that is required of all other foreigners.

Passports for sale: Yingluck’s Cambodian, you could be too

Mu Sochua, vice-president of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, said she did not believe Cambodian officials’ claims they were not aware of Yingluck’s Cambodian passport.

“There are many, many issues in terms of legality and sovereignty as far as Cambodia is concerned … where is the royal decree? No citizenship can be issued without a royal decree, and to get a passport from any country, you need to be a citizen of that country,” said Sochua, who fled her own country in 2017.

Mu Sochua, vice-president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party. Photo: Reuters

Sochua demanded Cambodia’s strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen investigate.

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