Deputy national police chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul has given his assurance that police have solid evidence to prosecute all suspects involved in poaching wildlife at Sai Yok National Park in Kanchanaburi.
He was speaking after two suspects -- defence volunteer Anuson Rueanngan and an ethnic Mon named only as Tata, a caretaker at Tao Dam monastery -- were handed over by Sai Yok police to the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok yesterday.
Pol Gen Srivara said Tata admitted he had shot a bearcat after which a man from Myanmar named only as Jira butchered it and the defence volunteer dumped the carcass in a stream.
He said the shooting was ordered by two men, led by Watcharachai Sameerak, who claimed to be government officials. This brings the total number of suspects in the case to 14.
To date, 13 of the suspects have been arrested but the man from Myanmar is still at large, Pol Gen Srivara said.
The suspects were arrested last Sunday and charged with poaching in Sai Yok National Park after being found with guns and several bearcat paws.
Bearcats are a protected species under the Wildlife Protection Act.
The deputy police chief said investigators had gathered sufficient evidence to make the arrests but were still waiting for results of a DNA test from the animal's carcass from the Department of National Park.
Pol Gen Srivara said he has also ordered investigators to expand their probe and look into whether any park officials were involved in the poaching.
On Wednesday, park rangers took Tata to the place where he said the poaching occurred.
He told park rangers that two Thai men claiming to be government officials ordered him to take them bearcat hunting in Sai Yok National Park.
The rangers quoted him as admitting he shot a bearcat, but said two men in the group led by Mr Watcharachai, who was then still assistant chief of Dan Makham Tia district, ordered him to do it.
He had to follow their orders because he was an immigrant and was afraid of being arrested.
One of the two men gave him a gun, told him to shoot, and then collected the animal he shot, Tata said.
Park rangers said the bearcat was possibly eating fruit in a banyan tree, 10-12 metres above the ground, when it was shot. The carcass was then butchered for a meal beside a stream where the group was camping.
Mr Watcharachai is one of the 14 suspects charged with illegal hunting after they were stopped as they left the park on Sunday. Rangers searched their vehicles and found a .22 rifle, a pistol, ammunition, and four severed bearcat paws. They had entered the park on Saturday.
Mr Watcharachai was removed from his position as assistant district chief on Monday by the provincial governor.
In a related case, two Vietnamese men were arrested in Phitsanulok after tiger skulls and dried meat of tigers were found in their luggage on a Tak-Mukdahan interprovincial passenger bus early yesterday.