SONGKHLA: Police say five men arrested in Songkhla have confessed to murdering a friend because they believe he informed on the mother of one of the suspects.
The body of Waranchit Noosanthad, 23, was found stuffed in a fertiliser sack and buried in roadside bushes in Na Mom district of this southern province on Thursday. A bullet was found lodged in his skull and he had been beaten with a hoe.
A father of two including a baby born just days before he died, he had been missing since May 9.
Waranchit’s mother filed a missing person report with Na Mom police on May 13, and a subsequent investigation led to the arrests of five men this week.
Police took the suspects — Natthasart Kaewthongkul, 24, Warakorn Panmuang, 30, Apirak Sa-ard, 26, Pongsathorn Phuetphaithoon, 23 and Kittiphat Kaewsakul, 30 — for a crime re-enactment at five locations in Na Mom district on Saturday.
Arrest warrants issued by the Songkhla provincial court charged them with colluding in murder, illegal possession of weapons and concealment of a body. All five confessed to the charges, said Pol Lt Gen Ronnasilp Phoosara, commissioner of Provincial Police Region 9.
Police said the killing stemmed from a dispute between Waranchit and Natthasart, one of the suspects, who thought the former had given police information that led to the arrest of his mother with illicit drugs at her house two weeks earlier.
Waranchit went to see Natthasart, who was taking drugs with four others at a shelter in a coconut orchard in tambon Thung Khamin of Na Mom at around 3am on May 10.
As soon as he arrived on his motorcycle, the five men started assaulting him in a fit of anger over the arrest of Natthasart’s mother. They accused him of being a police spy. They repeatedly kicked him and hit him with a hoe. The victim ran away, but was caught and beaten with wooden batons, said Pol Lt Gen Ronnasilp.
Warakorn, one of the other suspects, then returned to his house to fetch a pistol. He and Natthasart later stuffed the victim’s body into a fertiliser sack and covered the head with a plastic bag. The two men hoisted the body onto the motorcycle and drove off.
When they arrived at some roadside bushes in tambon Phichit, Natthasart fired one shot into the victim’s head to make sure he was dead. They later abandoned his bike near a pond in tambon Na Mom and phoned the other three suspects to come and pick them up.
Angsuwee Khunmud, the mother of the victim, insisted her son was not a police spy as alleged by the suspects. According to her, police had gone to Mr Natthasart’s house to arrest him for drugs but found his mother and the drugs there, so she was arrested.
Ms Angsuwee condemned the “black-hearted” suspects, all of whom had been close friends of her son. The victim and Natthasart had been especially close and were former classmates in primary school.
If the five wanted to apologise, they should not come to see her as she would not forgive them, she said.
The suspects are taken to a shelter in Na Mom district of Songkhla where they beat their friend before taking his body away to be buried. (Photo: Assawin Pakkawan)