Fugitive ex-Thai Prime Minister Yingluck 'living in Dubai'

Fugitive ex-premier of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra is living in Dubai, Thailand's junta leader said on Thursday a day after she was handed a five-year jail term in absentia for negligence.

Shinawatra left Thailand a month ago after ducking a court ruling over charges she failed to stop corruption and losses in a costly rice subsidy policy by her government.

"I learned from the foreign ministry that now she is in Dubai," said Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who toppled Yingluck's government from office in a 2014 coup.

His comments were the first clear indication of her whereabouts since fleeing Thailand.

On Wednesday Thailand's top court sentenced her in absentia to five years' jail, pulling the plug on her political career.  

She maintained her innocence throughout the case, which she said was a political fit-up sculpted by her family's enemies among the arch-royalist army and elite.

Thai authorities may proceed with extradition efforts once a fresh arrest warrant is issued, Prayut told reporters.

Yingluck's older brother Thaksin, also a former premier, has a home in Dubai.

The 2001 rise of Thaksin, a billionaire former cop with a magic touch at the polls, rattled Thailand's establishment and the country has since see-sawed between elected governments and coups. 

He fled Thailand in 2008 to avoid jail on a graft conviction he says was politically motivated.

Thai Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, a key architect of the coup that took down Yingluck's government, said "it's good she is in Dubai."

"Although don't have extradition treaty... Dubai officials informed our foreign ministry that they will not allow Yingluck to make any political move."

The 50-year-old, who still has the right to appeal, has not appeared in public since pulling the vanishing act on August 25, her initial ruling date.

The Shinawatra siblings lie at the centre of a political battle that has chewed at Thailand for more than a decade.

Shinawatra-backed parties have dominated electoral politics since 2001, enraging Bangkok's military-allied elite.

Unable to beat the Shinawatras at the polls, their rivals have turned to court rulings and coups to repeatedly knock their governments from power.