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Thai Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn attends the
opening of the National Legislative Assembly in Bangkok, August 7, 2014
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The family of the wife of Thailand's Crown Prince
have been stripped of an honorific title, police confirmed Monday, after three
of her relatives were caught up in a high-profile corruption scandal.
Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn has asked the country's
junta to forbid anyone from using the surname "Akkharapongpricha" in
a letter widely circulated over the weekend on social media.
Three people with the surname -- an honorific given
to relatives of Princess Srirasmi following her marriage to the Crown Prince --
were arrested last week on graft charges as part of a widening investigation
into an allegedly corrupt cabal of senior police officers.
"It is the royal last name given to the cousins
and siblings (of the princess)", national police spokesman Lieutenant
General Prawut Thavornsiri told AFP, adding that 19 people have now been
arrested in the widening probe.
"There was a document spread on social media.
We checked and it is true that they have been stripped of their royally given
surname."
The Bangkok Post and other media reported that the
three men worked within the palace.
Princess Srirasmi married the Crown Prince in 2001
and was most recently seen in public last week accompanying her husband at a
royal ceremony. The couple have a son who is thought to be Vajiralongkorn's
most likely heir.
Rumours had been circling within Thai society for
days that some of those arrested in the police corruption scandal were related
to the Crown Prince's second wife.
But the letter from Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn was
the first time an explicit connection had been made to people with links to the
palace.
Thailand's monarchy is protected by strict lese majeste laws. Both local and
international media must heavily self-censor when covering the country's royal
family.
Under section 112 of Thailand's criminal code anyone
convicted of defaming, insulting or threatening the king, queen, heir or regent
faces between three and 15 years in prison on each count.
Even repeating details of the charges could mean
breaking the law.
The police corruption scandal exploded last week
when three senior officers -- including the head of the elite Central
Investigation Bureau -- were arrested on a string of bribery charges.
Unusually, some of those detained were also charged
for defaming the monarchy, with police saying they had made "false
claims" about a royal to justify committing crimes that allegedly ranged
from running illegal casinos to oil smuggling, kidnapping and extortion.
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