BANGKOK, Thailand — Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman obtained a rapturous welcome on a go to right here earlier this month, maybe placing to mattress lastly one of many world’s odder diplomatic standoffs.
Because the chief of a prime world power producer with billions and billions of {dollars} in funding and purchases to supply, the Saudi crown would ordinarily be welcomed to a rustic like Thailand with open arms. However the prince’s go to got here solely after Riyadh lifted three a long time of sanctions which value the Thai economic system untold billions of {dollars} in misplaced commerce, tourism and jobs — all as a result of a Thai janitor, or maybe a Thai gardener — stole the large diamond greater than three a long time in the past.
The “Blue Diamond Affair” and its poisonous mixture of greed, sleaze, betrayal and bloodshed, nonetheless reverberates. The uncommon 50-carat stone on the coronary heart of the caper was by no means returned to Riyadh, and its present location is a thriller. Or maybe a secret.
Throughout the crown prince’s Nov. 18-19 Bangkok go to, he met and posed with world leaders at an Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation (APEC) summit, additionally attended by Vice President Kamala Harris and China’s President Xi Jinping. The prince, identified popularly by his initials “MBS,” was additionally one of many star points of interest regionally, assembly with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha and listening to Thailand’s pressing enchantment for Saudi vacationers, pure fuel and investments.
That’s not all: There are area of interest export alternatives, together with Thai hen and beef slaughtered in accordance with Islam’s halal regulation. Saudi Arabia faces perennial labor shortages and should provide jobs to Thai manufacturing facility, development and shipyard employees, electricians and machine operators, petroleum and pure fuel technicians, lodge and well being personnel, cooks, and housemaids.
However the nations solely restored full diplomatic ties after greater than three a long time of hostility in January, when Mr. Chan-ocha accepted an invite to go to Riyadh. The crown prince’s reciprocal go to, Thai officers hope, can lastly get each nations previous the incident.
“The restoration of ties has mutual advantages for each nations,” the crown prince stated on Nov. 19 throughout a welcoming ceremony.
Thai politicians, companies, and media predict Bangkok and Riyadh are leaping right into a profitable relationship which can assist rescue Thailand’s troubled economic system, however first the Blue Diamond affair wants some tidying up.
All of it started in 1989, when Kriangkrai Techamong, a Thai servant employed by the ruling Saudi household, made off with some 200 kilos of knickknack and different priceless gems from the palace of Prince Faisal bin Fahd. The haul, which was hidden for a time in a vacuum cleaner bag and spirited away to Thailand, included a uncommon 50-carat blue diamond, which was among the many largest and most precious of its sort on this planet.
A 12 months later, Saudi businessman Mohamed al-Ruwaili — who had shut hyperlinks with the Saudi royal household — vanished in Bangkok whereas investigating the crimes. He’s presumed useless.
Saudi Arabia, additionally angered by Bangkok’s incapability to unravel the obvious murders of 4 Saudi diplomats in Thailand round that point which will or could not have been associated to the heist, expelled greater than 200,000 Thai employees, banned Saudi vacationer journey to Thailand, and lessened imports and exports.
Thai police quickly captured Mr. Kriagnkrai after he bought sizzling gems to Thai jeweler Santhi Sithanakan, for ridiculously low costs as a result of the thief didn’t know their worth. After simply three years in jail, Mr. Kriangkrai was launched in 1994.
An tried rapprochement by the Thai authorities took a weird twist when Police Lt.-Gen. Chalor Kerdthes, the person who headed the investigation that caught Mr. Kriangkrai, flew to Saudi Arabia and returned among the jewels. Saudi officers have been angered to seek out that lots of the recovered gems have been pretend, and the prize blue diamond — one of many largest of its sort on this planet — wasn’t included in any respect.
In yet one more twist within the advanced chain of occasions, Lt. Gen. Chalor and different policemen could be charged and convicted for murdering the gem vendor Mr. Santhi’s spouse and little one. The final was sentenced at first to be put to demise however later given a 50-year sentence for his function within the crime. He was granted a royal pardon in 2015.
Withered relations
Riyadh-Bangkok relations withered because the blue diamond-linked chain of occasions unfolded and have struggled to get well ever since. Thais working within the Arab kingdom — and sending house priceless remittances to their households — went from as many at 200,000 on the time of the theft to a tenth of that by 2008.
There have been some new layers added to the thriller: A “confidential” February 2010 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok titled, “The Curse of the Blue Diamond,” and revealed by the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks web site, reported that, “quickly after the incident, some wives of Thai elites, notably police commissioners and generals, have been photographed carrying jewellery strongly resembling the stolen Saudi jewels at varied official or high-society occasions.”
“The Blue Diamond itself had been noticed a number of instances on the spouse of a police normal within the Nineties,” the embassy stated, however it later disappeared. That cable was despatched to the U.S. Central Intelligence Company, the Nationwide Safety Council, the U.S. Pacific Command, American embassies in China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.
However no proof has emerged proving definitively that Thai police obtained any of the still-missing jewels.
The American Embassy cable contended that 4 of the officers convicted within the demise of the gem salesman’s spouse and teenage son confessed that “the police allegedly kidnapped the members of the family with the intention to strain Santhi to disclose details about what occurred to the jewels.” After the jeweler paid, the “police gang” killed his spouse and little one to cowl their tracks.
In 2001, “two judges, one from the Appeals Court docket and one from the Supreme Court docket, tried to extort” lots of of hundreds of {dollars} from Lt.-Gen. Chalor, the cable stated, apparently to declare him harmless.
The Supreme Court docket upheld Lt.-Gen. Chalor’s demise sentence for kidnapping and two murders, however a number of years later, he was launched.
Others within the gang have been acquitted. One officer reportedly died in jail awaiting trial.
In January, a hopeful Prime Minister Prayuth met Prince Salman in Riyadh, and stated relations now “have to be higher than the final 32 years.
“Each nations have agreed to completely restore diplomatic ties, together with the appointment of ambassadors,” Mr. Prayuth stated on the time.
A joint Saudi-Thai assertion stated Mr. Prayuth “expressed his honest regrets for the tragic instances that came about in Thailand between 1989-1990.”
Thailand is dedicated “to offering acceptable safety to members of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Bangkok,” the assertion stated.
“We’ll transfer on, and won’t discuss in regards to the previous any extra,” stated Thai Overseas Minister Don Pramudwinai.
