Ex-police chief Chalor, who probed ‘Blue Diamond’ case, dies at 85
Former police commissioner Chalor Kerdthes, famous for leading the investigation into high-profile "Blue Diamond Affair" in the 1980s, died due to heart failure on Friday. He was 85 years old.
Facebook user Viphol Inthanon announced on Friday that Chalor, who he reportedly knew while working at Football Association of Thailand, had died while being treated for chronic diseases at Maharat Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital.
The hospital later confirmed that Chalor had died of heart failure, together with renal failure and septicaemia at around 5pm.
The family would hold a funeral rite on Saturday at Wat Subthawee Dhammaram in Wang Nam Khiao district of Nakhon Ratchasima province, Viphol said in the post.
Chalor headed the investigation to find the jewellery that a Thai worker stole from the palace of a Saudi Arabian prince in 1989. The Blue Diamond Affair was the beginning of a long period of estranged relations between Thailand and Saudi Arabia.
In 1994, Chalor was a suspect in the murder of a mother and her child of the Srithanakhun family.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and was released in 2013 after serving 19 years in Bang Kwang Prison, on grounds that he had served more than two-thirds of his sentencing – and was over 70 years old with chronic illnesses.
He was stripped of his rank of Pol Lt-General and was ordered to return his royal decoration in 2010, after which he changed his name to Thachapol.
