Thailand agog at tale of Princess Baby Fish and the flea powder poisoning

Independent
By Jan McGirk in Bangkok
13 March 2005


This is a cautionary tale for commoners who become caught up in the decadent whirl of Siamese high society. It is a story of lust, royals, a poisoning with flea powder, and it all centres on a young woman called Princess Baby Fish.

Life has not gone swimmingly for the ill-fated Chalasai Yugala, ever since she confessed to poisoning her powerful husband in Bangkok nearly a decade ago. Acquitted of first-degree murder earlier this month due to a lack of evidence, the 33-year-old remarried widow wept with joy. But Thailand's most notorious woman must now brace herself for this verdict to be challenged in the Supreme Court. If found guilty of murdering Prince Thitipan, a distant cousin of the revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Baby Fish faces the death penalty.

The Thai public is transfixed by this rare look at the tangled private lives of royalty. Commentators are shocked by the circumstances of Baby Fish's abusive upbringing in the palace, where she reportedly was raped at the age of 14 and held as a sex slave.

The spectacle of rival wives grappling over the royal estate bemuses observers, who have been betting on the outcome. The 60-year-old Prince Thitipan Yugala, whose pet name Than Kob translates as Frog, collapsed in a coma after sipping breakfast coffee laced with flea killer one August morning in 1995.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=619538

that America isn't the only country around with depraved losers for it's leaders.

Gyre