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Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha has died at the age of 47 after being in a coma for more than three years, the royal household has announced. The princess collapsed in December 2022 while exercising her dogs, an incident doctors attributed to a severe cardiac arrhythmia caused by a mycoplasma heart infection. Her death deprives the Thai royal family of its most accomplished public figure, who was widely expected to play a critical role in the country's uncertain royal succession.
She was the eldest of King Vajiralongkorn's seven children, born on 7 December 1978 to his first wife and cousin, Princess Soamsawali.
"The medical team provided the closest and most intensive care possible, but her condition continued to decline progressively," the palace said in a statement on Friday morning, adding that she passed away at 19:48 local time (12:48 GMT) the previous day in Chulalongkorn Hospital.
She trained as a lawyer, getting two post-graduate degrees from Cornell University in the US. She worked briefly at the Thai mission to the United Nations in New York, before returning to Thailand to work in the Attorney-General's offices in Bangkok and elsewhere in the country.
From 2012 to 2014 she was Thailand's ambassador to Austria, where she built a relationship with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
She started speaking out on the need for penal reform, with a particular focus on vulnerable women who end up in prison; Thailand has one of the world's highest numbers of female inmates.
Once back in Thailand she became the UNODC's Ambassador for the Rule of Law in South East Asia, and continued to advocate reform of Thailand's criminal justice system, in which severe sentences are often handed down on people convicted of relatively minor drug possession charges.
In 2021 her father made her a chief of staff in his private bodyguard, giving her the rank of general.
Princess Bajrakitiyabha was also a fitness enthusiast who often took part in long-distance runs.
Her abilities, and the trust her father appeared to have in her, made her an inevitable topic of speculation about the royal succession.
King Vajiralongkorn, who is 73 years old, has not yet named an heir. Thai custom dictates that the heir should be a male, but a 1974 amendment to the constitution does allow a female to take the throne.
