Former Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom
BANGKOK – Thailand’s Military controlled National Legislative Assembly of Thailand has banned a former minister from office on Friday over corrupt rice export deals, months after former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was impeached for negligence over a rice-pledging scheme.
Since taking power in a May 22 coup, the junta has actively pursued cases against members of the former administration. It also detained hundreds of activists and politicians linked to the Yingluck government in the weeks and months following the takeover, later releasing them.
Boonsong Teriyaphirom, commerce minister in Yingluck’s government, was banned from politics for five years by the National Legislative Assembly.
“The NLA has voted to impeach Boonsong Teriyaphirom,” assembly president Pornpetch Wichitcholachai said on Friday.
Yingluck was removed from office days before the coup that overthrew the remnants of her government. The army has said intervention was necessary to avoid further bloodshed after months of street protests aimed at ousting Yingluck.
Poom Sarapol, Boonsong’s former deputy commerce minister, and Manas Soiploy, a former director-general of the Department of Foreign Trade, were also banned from office