Brutal student slaying was tit-for-tat, say police
ONE OF THREE technical-school students accused of shooting dead a young man from a rival school on October 12 has allegedly told police they did it out of retaliation for the killing of a pupil from their own school.
Police say one of the three arrested men shamelessly told officers his gang from the Pathumwan Institute of Technology was avenging the September 25 murder of Anusorn Sondhi, 25, when it took the life of Kamonwich Suwanthat, a 24-year-old senior student at Rajamangala University of Technology Tawan-ok, Uthenthawai campus.
Both shootings occurred in front of the victims’ relatives.
Anusorn was killed in Pathum Thani in front of his aunt. He was selling food with the aunt when two men approached on a motorcycle, one of them armed. Likewise, Kamonwich was helping his family sell food in Soi Nawamin 57 in Bangkok.
“We are angry and wanted revenge, so we decided to commit the murder in the same manner our senior was killed,” the suspect was quoted as saying.
“We chose to shoot a student from our rival school when he was with his mother so she would see him gunned down, just as our senior’s aunt saw her nephew gunned down right in front of her eyes.”
Anusorn had recently graduated from Valaya Alongkorn Rajabhat University but had attended Pathumwan Institute.
Police claim the suspects said they had not picked out Kamonwich because of any personal dispute but because he could be gunned down in the same manner as Anusorn.
Krissada Narapong, 21, Patipan Charoenchaikul, 21, and Saharat Dongphrachan, 20, were arrested on Monday for premeditated murder. The alleged shooter Prasit Yonpol, 23, and another accomplice, Jirapat Phetchrak, 21, are still being sought. Metropolitan Police Bureau (MPB) acting chief Pol Lt-General Sutthipong Wongpin said police would also investigate whether anyone else was involved, for instance by hiring the gang to kill Kamonwich, which would then enable police to invoke the wide-ranging anti-money laundering law against the accused.
MPB chief investigator, Pol Maj-General Itthipol Atchariyapradit, said the murder of Kamonwich allegedly stemmed from a years-old Uthenthawai-Pathumwan feud which had led to many fights and 15 criminal cases since 2014. He said the three suspects in custody had only made a partial confession, saying they had knowledge of the crime but denying having committed the shooting themselves.
Meanwhile, Kamonwich’s grief-stricken parents Narudom Suwanthat, 55, and Khemanit Suwanthat, 54, have urged the two sides to stop fighting.
The couple went to the Lat Phrao police station around midday yesterday to thank police for making the arrests and urge them to find the two suspects still at large. They told officers they wanted to see the faces of their son’s alleged killers.
The couple didn’t say a word to the suspects. “I just wanted to see them because they were very cruel to hurt my son,” Narudom said, while declining to comment on the feud that police believes was behind the two killings.
“Each institute is good. This is more of the individuals’ wrongdoing. If such wrongdoing individuals are not remorseful, there is no point in talking,” he added. His wife Khemanit urged senior students at technical institutes to teach younger people to behave virtuously and with a good conscience to end the inter-institute conflicts.
The couple said they would attend court hearings to see if the three men were given temporarily bail because that could pose a risk to the family’s safety.
Police presented the suspects to the Ratchadapisek Criminal Court at 1pm for their first 12-day detention period. They had already decided to oppose bail on the grounds that the men faced heavy sentences if found guilty and might tamper with evidence or intimidate witnesses if released. In the event, none of the defendants appeared to apply for bail anyway.