Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Thursday made her first public comments on social media since fleeing the country last August during a criminal negligence trial that eventually sentenced her to five years in jail. Yingluck fled the country last August, days before the Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for her. She denied accusations over her handling of a rice purchase scheme that ran up losses in the billions of dollars. Sources in her Puea Thai party said she fled to London via Dubai, where her brother, billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has a home. Thaksin, in office from 2001 until he was ousted in a 2006 coup, made many enemies among the Bangkok-based elite, who accuse him of nepotism and corruption.