Inside the billionaire world of the controversial monarch of Thailand
A dubious $40 billion fortune, a harem of 20 female soldiers and a poodle that became Air Chief Marshal - what's happening in Thailand?
Coronation procession for Thailand’s newly crowned King Maha Vajiralongkorn in Bangkok 2019
Credit: /Reuters
On June 4 Sitanan Satsaksit called her brother, Wanchalearm, as he bought meatballs from a food stall in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Then she heard a loud bang, screams, and her brother shouting, "I can't breathe". Onlookers say armed men bundled Wanchalearm into a black SUV, which sped away.
Wanchalearm was a human-rights activist who had fled Thailand after a military coup there in 2014. Aged 37, he was the ninth exiled Thai dissident to disappear in recent years. The bodies of two were found in the Mekong River on Thailand's border with Laos - disembowelled, bodies stuffed with concrete, their legs broken and hands shackled. Nobody expects to see Wanchalearm alive again.