The Saudi diplomat has given away any pretense that it is a "family matter".
In a video released by Thailand's immigration office, he complains about Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun's Twitter account, which roared into life earlier this week as the Saudi teenager barricaded herself in a hotel room at Suvarnabhumi airport, resisting forced deportation that she claims threatens her life.
"I wish you had taken her phone," the diplomat says, speaking through a translator.
Ms Qunun's stand on Monday and the subsequent groundswell of support expressed on social media may have saved her life, but she is not out of danger yet. The UNHCR's recognition of her refugee status yesterday, and Australia's review of possible asylum, are important milestones in clarifying her rights under international law, but ultimately she remains subject to Thai jurisdiction as long as she is in the country.
For the time being at least, Thailand has emerged belatedly as an unlikely hero. After apparently working with Saudi embassy staff to force the 18-year-old on to a Kuwait-bound flight on Monday morning, immigration officials reversed course later in the day. Referring to Ms Qunun's renunciation of Islam, immigration chief Pol Lt Gen Surachate Hakparn told the media "we won't send someone to their death".
Saudi Arabia does indeed hand down capital sentences for apostasy, but Ms Qunun's fear expressed on social media and in a BBC interview was that it was her family who would kill her because of the public exposure that her case had attracted. It's difficult, perhaps impossible for most of us, to imagine her ordeal on Monday, in that Suvarnabhumi hotel room with the clock ticking towards a Kuwait Airways flight.
The Twitter storm on Monday quite probably played a role in inclining Thai authorities to allow UNHCR access and for Ms Qunun to leave the airport. Bangkok's record of forced repatriation of refugees, who could face torture or even possible death, has been awful in recent years. Hakeem al-Araibi, a professional footballer with Australian residency, has been detained since November and is fighting deportation to Bahrain, where -- at the very least -- he faces a prison sentence.
In several other instances in recent years, Thailand has deported refugees back to their countries of origin despite clear threats of persecution, including the 2015 case involving more than 100 Uighurs returned to China, in clear contradiction of international law on non-refoulement.
Thailand has a legitimate interest in building better relations with Saudi Arabia, notably in the aftermath of the notorious, decades-old Blue Diamond incident and the related murders of Saudi officials. Ms Qunun's peril, however, is not the right case to concede. Initial comments by Thai officials on Monday referring to her a "child" who needed to be returned to her "guardians" reflected a dangerous misunderstanding of her situation and subscribed to a Saudi narrative that is deeply flawed.
Similar to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi last year, the attempt to abduct Ms Qunun spotlights systemic abuses under Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Her vulnerability is highlighted by other recent abductions that had not attracted the same level of international attention.
In 2017, Dina Ali Lasloom was intercepted by family members at Manila's international airport, bound with duct tape and forcibly repatriated after reportedly fleeing a coerced marriage. Prominent activist Loujain al-Hathloul was detained the same year while trying to drive across into the UAE and then rearrested last year. Both cases -- and many more women detained, including some allegedly tortured, in the kingdom -- are being revisited in light of Ms Qunun's very public stand-off.
The Egyptian-American feminist author and activist Mona Eltahawy, one of the leaders of the Twitter campaign raising awareness about Ms Qunun's plight, is now predicting a "revolution" in Saudi Arabia against the guardianship system.
The system is enshrined in the country's legal code, requiring women to be accompanied in public usually by a male relative and, as Eltahawy has written, effectively depriving them of their rights as adults.
As a journalist who worked in the UAE for five years, however, I know firsthand that systems of control surrounding women's agency is hardly confined to Saudi Arabia. While the legal codes of neighbouring countries differ, in practice many women are severely limited in work, leisure and travel by similar prevailing norms. For generations of women who for the first time have access to higher education, and in many countries where their educational achievements demographically outstrip those of men, they are sharply limited in professional development, not to mention personal choices, after receiving advanced degrees.
Amid the Twitter storm advocating for Ms Qunun's freedom, there were also comments posted by defenders of the Saudi system, including personal attacks against Eltahawy, a frequent target of the trolls. Accounts with thousands of followers posted a mix of sexualised and racist insults, including one threat to "buy" the prominent author. Eltahawy is quite capable of dealing with sexist attacks online, but the vitriol showed how misogyny is often paired with the guardianship system, which its advocates would prefer to depict as protecting women.
In Ms Qunun's case, the father that she is running from is a senior government official, a man who can apparently bring the power of the state to bear. The Saudi embassy's denials of Ms Qunun's claims that her passport was seized and that the government was not involved in an attempted abduction should be treated with the same scepticism warranted by Riyadh's explanation of Khashoggi's murder.
Australia has promised "careful consideration" of Ms Qunun's case after UNHCR finding on her refugee status. Her stand on Monday and the subsequent groundswell of support on social media may have averted disaster. That said, however, for the time being Ms Qunun remains subject to Thai law and reliant on Pol Lt Gen Surachate's guarantee. It is in Thailand's interest, and indeed in Saudi Arabia's, if the non-refoulement principle and Ms Qunun's basic human rights are respected.
Jeremy Walden-Schertz is a journalist based in Southeast Asia.