BANGKOK (Reuters) – A suspected hitman accused of killing a Cambodian former opposition lawmaker in a brazen assault in Bangkok was handed over to Thai authorities on Saturday from Cambodia, the place he had been arrested after crossing the border.
Thai nationwide Ekkalak Paenoi, 41, faces expenses together with premeditated homicide within the Tuesday capturing loss of life of Lim Kimya, 74, within the Thai capital.
“The suspect confessed to the crime and to being the person in the arrest warrant,” Somprasong Yentuam, assistant nationwide police chief, informed reporters. “He looked stressed.”
Ekkalak, a bike taxi driver who law enforcement officials informed Reuters was a former marine, was taken to Bangkok after Thai police coordinated with Cambodian authorities. A Thai court docket issued the warrant and he was arrested on Wednesday.
Lim Kimya, a Cambodian and French citizen, was killed by a gunman firing three photographs, hours after arriving from Cambodia together with his spouse and brother and travelling to Bangkok by bus, police have stated.
He was a member of the Cambodia Nationwide Rescue Social gathering, a well-liked opposition group that was dissolved by a court docket over an alleged treason plot forward of a 2018 election. The celebration dismissed the alleged plot as a fabrication.
Cambodia’s authorities, led by the Cambodian Individuals’s Social gathering for greater than 4 a long time, has carried out a ruthless, years-long crackdown on its opponents, with scores of politicians and activists receiving jail phrases, many in absentia, and tons of extra fleeing into exile. It has denied persecuting the opposition.
Lim Kimya was not a distinguished member of the opposition motion. Police and the Thai authorities stated they’d to not decided the motive for his killing.
