OFF TOPIC - BUT WHO SAID MONEY IS ALL THAT MATTERS.
'Cinderella' convicted of killing frog prince
From Andrew Drummond in Bangkok
A STREET waif who was adopted into the Thai royal household and later married a prince was sentenced to six years in jail yesterday for murdering him with poison.
What had seemed to be a fairytale to millions of Thai children turned out to have been a long ordeal of sexual abuse for the girl known as Luuk Pla, or Little Fish, who was 11 when the Prince first forced himself upon her.
Little Fish, whose real name is Chalasai Choopwa, said that she would appeal against her conviction for murdering Prince Thitibhan Yugala, 60, known as “Frog”. Chalasai, 29, has been bailed pending the appeal and is running a noodle stall in Bangkok.
A court in the city was told that he took 12 days to die in 1995 from the insect poison slipped into his coffee. Little Fish said that she had been abused by him since she was a child, but did not murder him.
The Prince, a cousin of Thailand’s reigning monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, adopted Little Fish when she was four. She was born in the city’s Chulalongkorn Hospital but abandoned by her mother.
Prince Thitibhan was a playboy who drove a Ferrari and had many mistresses. As he did his rounds of the Bangkok nightlife, Little Fish was left to play the role of Cinderella at home, doing the housework and washing and serving the Prince’s elderly mother.
When she was 11, the Prince crept into Chalasai’s bedroom and took her by force. From that moment he kept her in his master bedroom, instructing her in lovemaking.
Thirteen years later he announced their forthcoming marriage. The illustration on their wedding invitation showed a fish jumping out of the water to kiss a frog.
He proclaimed proudly: “My wife does not have to be beautiful. She does not even have to be a good cook. But she has to be good in bed, and Little Fish is my No 1 in that regard.” In fact, the Prince’s lovemaking contained more violence than love, Little Fish said later. But he was obsessed with her. He showered her with gifts. He bought her a Ferrari, gold and jewellery and even a private aircraft.
Her Ferrari which became her means of freedom. By the age of 16 she drove frequently out of the palace gates and into the city centre to sample life on the outside. She had a string of affairs and even ran off to the Thai resort of Pattaya with a young Swedish tourist whom she had met in a shopping mall.
The Prince begged her to come home, which she did — but she had to pay a price. “He was always violent. He was always cruel,” she said.
After the Swedish tourist incident, Prince Thitibhan was quick to boast to a friend: “For that I beat her and then tied and trussed her up. I then hoisted her by hook on a winch and left her dangling over our bed for three days.”
After their wedding on August 12, 1994, he described their relationship: “Our love is one of passion. With passion always comes pain, but with passion also comes ecstasy.”
Within months she was sneaking out to meet Uthet Choopwa, 19, who sold chestnuts from a street stall. She said later that she had fallen hopelessly in love. “He didn’t care who I was. He was not scared to stand up for me. I was No 1 for him and he was No 1 for me.”
In November 1995 Prince Thitibhan was taken to hospital after drinking his morning coffee at his palace. Twelve agonising days later he died, his insides corroded by poison.
The Princess did not stay to await her £7 million inheritance. She left everything behind, the cars, the private aircraft, even most of the gold and jewellery. She married her new love and they headed for the country. They have since lived in poverty.
She claimed that she had been forced to confess, protesting on a television chat show: “I did not kill Gop (Frog) Why? I could have run away any time and I do not need all those cars and belongings. I left because for the first time in my life I found love.”
Little Fish has plenty of support in her campaign to keep her freedom. A poll showed that 80 per cent of people do not want her to go to prison.
