Bajrakitiyabha was the only child of King Vajiralongkorn\u2019s first marriage to Princess Soamsawali.<\/p>\n
A trained prosecutor and diplomat, Bajrakitiyabha was educated in Britain, Thailand and the United States, earning a law degree from Cornell University, and serving for a time as Thailand\u2019s ambassador to Austria.<\/p>\n
During a 2012 visit to the US law school, the princess remarked about her professional background to a campus audience: \u201cI ask myself now, what am I exactly? A prosecutor? A criminal lawyer? A diplomat? The answer is everything all together. I say I am a hybrid\u201d, according to the Cornell Chronicle.<\/p>\n
She also held several positions with the United Nations and became an advocate for women\u2019s rights, including improved conditions for women in prison.<\/p>\n
As princess, Bajrakitiyabha held an important ceremonial role in Thai society, where the royal family sits at the apex.<\/p>\n
She was seen as close to her father, and was appointed to a senior role in his bodyguard command a year before her hospitalisation.<\/p>\n
The 73-year-old king, who has seven children from four marriages, has not announced his chosen heir, though succession rules favour men.<\/p>\n
Strict rules govern what can and cannot be said about the Thai royal family, who are protected from criticism by lese-majeste laws which carry prison sentences of up to 15 years per charge.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bajrakitiyabha was the only child of King Vajiralongkorn\u2019s first marriage to Princess Soamsawali. A trained prosecutor and diplomat,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6872,74,18919,696,1975,239064,14032,690,6179,139301,4999,42,2241,78,27981,239065,43,28362,28821,9855,25067,1529,40,38,41,39,1530],"class_list":["post-474051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-6872","tag-after","tag-aged","tag-announced","tag-at","tag-bajrakitiyabha","tag-daughter","tag-dead","tag-died","tag-eldest","tag-friday","tag-headlines","tag-hospital","tag-in","tag-kings","tag-mahidol","tag-news","tag-palace","tag-princess","tag-royal","tag-thai","tag-three","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}