Thailand’s top court ordered ousted premier Yingluck Shinawatra to stand trial on charges of negligence over a rice subsidy scheme that lost billions of dollars.  She could be jailed for up to a decade, and the move will likely deepen the political crisis in Thailand.

The junta’s attorney general charged Yingluck last month, and (surprise) the junta’s supreme court on Thursday decided it was within its jurisdiction.  Prosecutors accused her of dereliction of duty for the program, which paid race harvesters more than twice the market rate.  The first hearing will be held on 19 May.

Yingluck was Thailand’s first female Prime Minister, and the sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was also ousted by a coup before he fled the country to avoid the political prosecution his sister is now subjected.  The Shinawatras – or parties allied to them – have won every Thai election since 2001, based on their social and economic programs for Thailand’s long-neglected agricultural north.  So frustrating was this for the royalist elite, that they basically turned their backs on democracy, ousting Thaksin in 2006 and Yingluck in 2014.