Many questions surround the case

This query has been on everyone’s mind as new details continue making the case more mysterious and puzzling. One also can’t help but wonder if this is another case in which the masterminds are virtually untouchable?

Though the circumstances surrounding Akeyuth’s death appear to be fishy and complicated, lawyer Suwat Apaipak told ASTV on Wednesday that he and the late businessman’s family were 100-per-cent sure that motivation was not theft as it has been made out to be. They believe the murder involved professional killers and included a “high-ranking military man who plotted the assassination”.

Suwat said he did not believe for a minute that Akeyuth’s 25-year-old driver Santiparb Pengduang had the skills to come up with such a well-planned murder plot. 

“Akeyuth was strangled by the neck till his eyes and tongue popped out,” Suwat said. “There is no way a man with a small structure like Santiparb could have done that.” 

Also, he said, the theory that his client as killed for money did not work. He said the “team” of killers, which he believes comprised four or five men, would not have strangled Akeyuth for a mere Bt5 million as claimed by Santiparb. 

Plus, he said, the entire Bt5 million was found in Santiparb’s possession, which means that the rest of the team had been paid by someone else to do the job. 

Another missing piece of the jigsaw – which could help unravel who the killers and the mastermind were – is the mobile phone that Santiparb allegedly used before driving Akeyuth to his death. A security camera in the restaurant where Akeyuth ate with his friends before the fatal drive captured Santiparb speaking on a mobile phone. Yet this phone was not part of the evidence the police said they had seized from the driver. 

 

An odd arrest

Another discovery is that the police team that nabbed Santiparb at a petrol station was led by none other than Pol Colonel Napanwut Liamsa-nguan – a suspect acquitted over the disappearance of lawyer and human-rights activist Somchai Neelapaijit in 2004. Thaksin Shinawatra was in power when Somchai disappeared. 

Napanwut, who changed his name from Chadchai, works as a superintendent at the Children and Women’s Protection Division. Yet, Bangkok Police Chief Kamronwit Thoopkrachang gave him the job of making arrests after news came out that Akeyuth might have been abducted. 

When Santiparb was arrested, Kamronwit refused to confirm the arrest to the media, saying he “hadn’t received any reports”. 

Kamronwit was previously linked to Thaksin, when it was discovered that he met the fugitive former PM in Hong and allowed him to pin a new rank insignia on his uniform. He even has a photograph of himself with Thaksin on his office wall. 

Before his murder, Akeyuth had filed a libel suit against Kamronwit over a police raid on a karaoke bar. However, many believe that a libel court case is not a strong enough reason for murder. 

The point that the public has found most unusual and strange is that the investigators were too quick to parade the driver before the press, even though his story – which he later changed – was full of holes. 

At noon he denied any knowledge of his boss’s disappearance, only to confess six hours later that he and others took part in the killing because Akeyuth had “fired his girlfriend” and that he wanted the money. 

 

Strange timing

It is strange that Santiparb’s confession came after Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung, who has been very outspoken about this case, told the media that he believed the driver had murdered his boss for money. 

Lawyer Suwat said he had faith in the ASTV report, which alleged that Akeyuth was killed because he was a “long-time whistle blower against the Thaksin regime”. ASTV also stated that Akeyuth had enraged the Shinawatra family by not only leaking news that “Yingluck secretly met with businessmen at the Four Seasons Hotel”, but by also claiming that she used taxpayer’s money to fund a “passionate getaway in the Maldives”.

Akeyuth’s Facebook page, which normally carried information against the Shinawatras, has been inaccessibly since Thursday. 

Suwat has one last hope in unlocking the mystery. 

Though the hard drive of the security camera in Akeyuth’s home has mysteriously gone missing, the fact that the camera could be accessed via the Internet means the service provider’s server still holds footage recorded by the camera. 

Hence, he is calling on Chalerm, who has the power to order a search, to come forward with this “damning” piece of evidence.