THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Ambush of Hmong leader might be linked to his role in arrest of drug suspects

Ambush of Hmong leader might be linked to his role in arrest of drug suspects

POLICE BELIEVE they know the identities of the shooters in the April 24 gun ambush in Chiang Rai’s Wiang Kaen district, a deputy national police chief said yesterday.

The ambush led to serious injuries to the well-known Hmong kamnan Thaweesak Yodmaneebanphot and his three-year-old son, as well as the instant deaths of his wife and five-year-old daughter.
The suspects – information about whom Chalermkiat declined to further discuss – were from Thailand and a neighbouring country, but the probe so far has not found a link to any uniformed Thai person, Pol General Chalermkiat Srivorakhan said in his capacity as the deputy national police chief for crime suppression. 
The Provincial Police Region 5 investigation into the ambush was now focusing on Thaweesak’s role in arrests of drug suspects. Police had not yet ruled out other possible motives and he would visit Chiang Rai tomorrow to track progress on the case, Chalermkiat said. 
During Songkran this year, Wiang Kaen district reported the seizure of 9.4 million methamphetamine pills and 788 kilograms of crystal meth or “ice”, while Chaing Kham in the neighbouring province of Phayao reported a separate drug bust that seized 200 kilograms of “ice”. 
A police source said that officers were checking the phone numbers that repeatedly called Thaweesak’s mobile prior to the shooting, as some of them might lead to the group behind the fatal ambush. 
The 54-year-old Thaweesak, the chief of Tambon Por in Wiang Kaen and president of the Hmong People Club of Thailand, was still in hospital, along with his son, Chaimongkol, yesterday. His daughter Thanyaporn’s body was released for a funeral days ago. 
The body of his 40-year-old wife, Maiyia Wongnaphapaisarn, was released from autopsy yesterday. The body was placed in a teak-wood coffin and loaded on to a relative’s pickup truck for a funeral to be held in the Hmong tradition in Ban Huai Han of Tambon Por. The body would be kept for funeral prayers for five days before its burial.
Thaweesak, who is now recovering, reportedly wished to attend his wife’s funeral. He was not able to attend |his daughter’s funeral due to his injuries, including damage to both eyes that required specialist treatment in Chiang Mai.
 

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