Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, the eldest of King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s children, died on Thursday after more than three years in a coma.
Princess Bha, as she was known in Thailand, died in a Bangkok hospital where she had been cared for since falling unconscious due to illness over three years ago, the Bureau of the Royal Household said.
Bajrakitiyabha, a lawyer by training, was active in justice reform campaigns and was best known for her Kamlangjai, or “Inspire”, project to help rehabilitate incarcerated Thai women ahead of their release.
She was hospitalised in late 2022 after falling unconscious while training dogs for an army exhibition. The palace said she had a mycoplasma infection associated with pneumonia.
The royal New Year’s greeting card for 2023 depicted King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida garbed in sombre black, which many Thais saw as confirmation of the gravity of the princess’s health condition.
The limited information released in subsequent years indicated a deterioration in her condition. In May, the palace said her condition had worsened further with multiple infections spreading across organs. Her kidney function and breathing were supported through medical equipment, it noted, and doctors had been unable to stabilise her heart rate.
Bajrakitiyabha was born in December 1978 to Vajiralongkorn, who was the crown prince at the time, and his then wife Soamsawali. She was one of his seven children by three of his four successive wives.
Her experience in public service had sparked speculation that she would hold an important role in any future succession, perhaps as regent to a youthful monarch, likely Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, the youngest prince and the presumptive heir.
Pran Jintrawet, a political science and public administration lecturer at Chiang Mai University, said the princess’s death was set to be widely felt in Thailand. “Her absence means the loss of a publicly adored figure,” he told The Straits Times.
Bajrakitiyabha studied at Thammasat University before studying for a master’s in law at Cornell University. She went on to earn a doctorate from the American university in 2005.
After working briefly at Thailand’s mission to the UN in New York, she returned home and worked as a public prosecutor.
She renewed her diplomatic career with an appointment as Thailand’s ambassador to Austria between 2012 to 2014 before returning to concentrate on criminal justice reform. In 2017, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
In addition to working for the rehabilitation of female convicts, the princess was involved in other projects including a campaign to enhance the living conditions of women prisoners and promoting efforts to stem violence against women as an honorary UN goodwill ambassador for women.
Her efforts led to the UN General Assembly adopting the “Bangkok Rules” on care and conditions for female prisoners.
“Society cannot grow if there is instability and injustice,” Bajrakitiyabha said in a 2013 interview with the Associated Press.
“Without the rule of law, without a good justice system, it’s always chaos,” she said. “I think the rule of law is a very important pillar to development, to economic growth, and of course to human rights.”
Bajrakitiyabha is survived by her parents and siblings.
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