Former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has returned to Facebook after almost a year to thank her brother and supporters on her birthday on Thursday.
Yingluck, who turned 51, wrote it was her first birth anniversary after she left the country in August last year.
The former prime minister turned to social media to thank her supporters for their well-wishing messages and gifts. "All friendship, love and good intention from you, I will never forget," she wrote.
Yingluck also thanked former prime minister Thaksin for taking good care of her and hosting her birthday dinner.
Thaksin celebrated the birthday with his youngest sister in London.
The Facebook post on Thursday was the first since Aug 24 last year, when she advised the supporters to stay home, instead of gathering at the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders the following day to hear the ruling on her rice-pledging case.
The former prime minister never came on Aug 25 and fled the country, while the court sentenced her to five years in prison for failing to stop fake and corruption-plagued government-to-government sales of rice from her rice-pledging scheme.
An arrest warrant was later issued for her for sneaking out of the country.
Thaksin posted an encouraging message to her on his Instagram on Thursday, wishing her good health and happiness. He promised to take care of his sister during her time overseas.
Jom Petchpradab, an independent reporter on exile in the US, gave Yingluck birthday greetings on Facebook.
In his post, he wrote he learned from people who talked with the two ex-prime ministers during their recent trip to Kentucky about why she fled Thailand.
"I was told she did not plan to run and was ready to be jailed. She was confident she would receive justice from the judicial process like she insisted all along.
"At this point, a voice from another table was heard: 'But I won’t let my sister be put behind bars, not for a day, or a second'," Mr Jom wrote.
