A senior Thai royal official has been sacked for “evil acts” including having an extramarital affair and forcing his alleged mistress to get an abortion, the palace said, the latest top aide to be axed under King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
Vajiralongkorn, 65, took the throne one year ago following the death of his widely revered father king Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for seven decades.
He has yet to attain his father’s widespread popularity, but remains insulated from any criticism by one of the world’s harshest royal defamation laws.
PALACE PURGE
Since ascending the throne the new monarch has axed a number of powerful palace officials from his father’s era.
The latest aide to fall from grace is Distorn Vajarodaya, a senior official in the Royal Household Bureau who served as grand chamberlain under the late king Bhumibol and was often seen by the ailing monarch’s side during the final years of his reign.
A statement published on Friday by the Royal Gazette stripped Distorn of his royal decorations and listed his alleged wrongdoings — including having an extramarital affair, “forcing” his mistress to get an abortion, and then coercing her into marrying another man.
“When the woman got pregnant for the second time, he forced her to have another abortion, but the woman refused. So he forced her to get married with another man she hadn’t had a relationship with,” the statement said.
ACCUSATIONS
Distorn was also accused of “using the King’s name to avoid taxation in importing a foreign vehicle” to replace a damaged royal car.
The aide also allegedly ordered staff to forge documents about a donation to a royal foundation he chaired.
Thailand’s lese majeste law, which criminalizes insulting the monarchy with up to 15 years in prison per offense, makes it impossible to publicly counter such charges.
Many of those purged from the new monarch’s inner circle have been charged with lese majeste and jailed.
In one of the most dramatic episodes, Vajiralongkorn divorced his third wife in late 2014 after half a dozen of her relatives were charged with lese majeste — and later jailed — for allegedly abusing their royal ties to him.
All media inside Thailand must heavily self-censor when reporting on the royal family to avoid falling foul of the defamation law.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not