RATCHABURI – A former anti-graft deputy secretary-general was shot dead and his maid and a passerby injured when unknown gunmen sprayed his car with bullets Thursday.
Police officers inspect the car which Pol Col Vitoon Promprawat was inside.
Retired Pol Col Vitoon Promprawat, 78, suffered 10 gunshots to the abdomen and hip from 9mm and 11mm weapons as he drove on Ban Phong-Khum Payom Road in tambon Khum Payom.
A passenger in the bullet-riddled Toyota, housemaid Thongpech Phanwong, 62, was shot in the hand and leg while Pathom Kowsakul, 49, was hit in the abdomen. Both were rushed to a nearby hospital.
Vitoon, a former deputy secretary-general at the National Anti-Corruption Commission, and the maid were on their way to the district office, but were followed by at least three attackers in a silver car, said Pol Maj Gen Suthipong Wongpin, deputy commander of Provincial police Region 7. Investigators found five 9mm and two 11mm shells at the scene.
Police speculated on several motives, the leading one being an on-going argument between Vitoon and his neighbours. Police said the dead man frequently fired his guns in the sky to threaten locals whom he believed had stolen chickens and damaged his property.
Another motive, police said, may stem from a complaint Vitoon had filed with the army that led to a raid on an underground lottery gang allegedly operated by a local politician.