The Criminal Court has denied bail for a Taiwanese businessman and two Thai suspects — a retired navy officer and a former navy Seal — arrested in connection with a foiled murder plot linked to a business conflict.
The three men were taken to the Bangkok Remand Prison following their appearance in court on Saturday.
Crime Suppression Division (CSD) officers took Feng-Hao Chang, 68, to the court along with Rear Adm Prakaipruek Srifa, 64, and Tewarat Mangkorn, 66, to seek approval to detain them pending a further investigation.
Under the law, criminal suspects can be detained for a maximum of seven 12-day periods, or 84 days in total, before police must press charges or release them.
The suspects were arrested separately in Bangkok on Friday on warrants issued by the Criminal Court on charges of hiring others to commit murder.
The trio had been accused of colluding in a plot to kill Mr Chang’s wife, his son and a lawyer over alleged business conflicts in an electronic equipment exporting company worth over one billion baht, said police.
Rear Adm Prakaipruek was an adviser to Mr Chang’s company.
The CSD investigators opposed bail, citing the seriousness of the crime and the severe penalties. The officers feared the suspects, if released, might interfere with evidence.
While being transported to the court, the suspects appeared exhausted following intense questioning overnight.
During questioning, only Mr Chang gave useful statements to the case while the Thai duo denied any involvement, according to police sources.
The arrests were made during raids on Friday at eight locations in Chon Buri and Bangkok.
Tewarat Mangkorn, 66, a former navy Seal, is taken to the Criminal Court on Saturday. (Photo supplied/Wassayos Ngamkham)
Mr Chang’s son James, 29, filed a complaint with CSD police in November that he was being monitored continuously and was worried about his safety.
He told the officers that he had had a dispute with his father, whom he suspected of embezzling from the electronic equipment firm controlled by the family.
Mr Chang and his son have filed a number of lawsuits against each other since 2022, resulting in at least 20 cases demanding the removal of each other from the firm’s board of directors.
CSD investigators subsequently arrested three gunmen, who reportedly confessed that Tewarat had hired them to kill James Chang, his mother and his lawyer.
According to reports, Rear Adm Prakaipruek had asked Tewarat to hire hitmen for 1.5 million baht to carry out the murders.
Tewarat, a former navy captain, was an expert in weapons and explosives. He was stripped of his rank after being jailed for killing a police officer in Mae Sot, Tak in 2006. He was released recently after serving his term.
Rear Adm Prakaipruek and Tewarat were former classmates at the Royal Thai Naval Academy.
The investigation is being extended to find out whether there were others involved in the murder plot, said Pol Col Wiwat Jitsophakul, chief of CSD sub-division 2.
So far, there are only the three suspects, he said, as the hitmen arrested earlier were now being treated as witnesses.
Though the suspects have denied the charges, investigators were confident in the evidence they had gathered, he added.