A 27-year-old man has been arrested in Pathum Thani, seven years after fleeing arrest on charges of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Kanchanaburi.
Kritsada Moraphad, of Tha Muang district in Kanchanaburi, was apprehended at a shopping mall on Phahon Yothin Road in Lam Luk Ka district of Pathum Thani on Friday.
The man’s face turned white when the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) officers showed him the warrant, Thai media reported on Saturday.
Mr Kritsada was wanted on a warrant issued by the Kanchanaburi provincial court on June 26, 2012 for sexually abusing a girl under age 13, indecent assault on a girl under 15 and depriving her of parental care, and taking illicit drugs.
He was accused of luring a girl, who lived in the same village in Tha Muang district, into going out with him to see a friend on June 25, 2012, and then raping her. The girl’s mother filed a complaint with local police after learning what happened from her daughter.
But the trail went cold until recently, when CSD investigators learned that the man was staying at the house of a relative in Pathum Thani. They began monitoring his movements and subsequently arrested him at the shopping mall on Friday.
During the interrogation, Mr Kritsada denied all charges. He claimed he could not remember what happened on the day in question as he was drunk. He told police that he only remembered that he offered to take the girl to her house. After that he could not remember anything.
As for drug charges, he claimed it was an old case and he had already kicked the drug habit a long time ago, police said.
He has been handed over to the custody of the Tha Muang police station for further legal action.