Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck Shinawatra, and Yaowapa Wongsawat have all survived the National Anti-Corruption Commission's (NACC) consideration of petitions lodged against them in the second part of the rice-pledging scandal.
The three siblings were among 71 parties accused of involvement in the second part of the scandal, while former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom, sentenced by the Supreme Court to 42 years in prison in connection with the first part of the rice-pledging scandal, was treated as an eyewitness in this new NACC probe.
A source at the NACC on Tuesday said the commission had dismissed petitions filed against Thaksin, Yingluck and Ms Yaowapa because the witness statements provided by Boonsong, who implicated all of them, weren't convincing.
Boonsong insisted that he and Yingluck had gone to a hotel on Ekkamai-Ram Intra Road to speak to Thaksin via Skype about an undisclosed decision that needed to be made by Thaksin, who was living in self-exile overseas, said the source.
After the conversation with Thaksin, Boonsong, and Yingluck left the hotel room and went to meet Ms Yaowapa for a brief conversation, said the source quoting Boonsong's statement.
Ms Yaowapa was quoted by Boonsong as asking him if everything was taken care of, to which Boonsong replied, "yes", said the source, adding Ms Yaowapa told Boonsong to follow Thaksin's instructions.
However, when Boonsong was asked by the NACC to support his statements with evidence, such as recorded Skype conversations with Thaksin from that day, Boonsong told the NACC he didn't have the password to log on to that Skype account, and the conversations weren't recorded, said the source.
The NACC had therefore found his statements insufficient to convince it that Thaksin, Yingluck, and Ms Yaowapa were really involved in the rice-pledging scandal, as was alleged, said the source.
The NACC also found that the petition filed against Yingluck, in particular, contained the same information and evidence already used by the Supreme Court in judging the previous case concerning the first part of the scandal that saw the former prime minister eventually being acquitted.
