Overview
- Princess Bajrakitiyabha died Thursday evening at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital after more than three years in a coma that began with a collapse in December 2022.
- The Bureau of the Royal Household said her condition worsened from multiple organ complications, listing an intra‑abdominal infection, colitis, low blood pressure, irregular heart rhythms and blood clotting disorders.
- The king has commanded royal funeral rites with the highest honours and ordered her body to be enshrined at Piman Rattaya Throne Hall in the Grand Palace.
- Bajrakitiyabha was a Western‑trained lawyer and diplomat who held a doctorate from Cornell, led the Kamlangjai project for female prisoners and served as a UNODC goodwill ambassador and ambassador to Austria.
- Her death removes a prominent public figure from the list of possible successors, leaving Prince Dipangkorn widely described as the presumptive heir and renewing succession questions that public debate in Thailand cannot freely address because of strict lèse‑majesté laws.