Pattaya barrel-murder suspect indicted in S.Korea
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Pattaya barrel-murder suspect indicted in S.Korea

Police wait while divers search for the body of Korean Roh Eui-jong in Map Prachan reservoir in Bang Lamung district in Chon Buri on May 11. (Photo: Chaiyot Pupattanapong)
Police wait while divers search for the body of Korean Roh Eui-jong in Map Prachan reservoir in Bang Lamung district in Chon Buri on May 11. (Photo: Chaiyot Pupattanapong)

South Korean prosecutors have indicted one of three suspects in the murder of a fellow Korean found dead in a concrete-filled barrel in a reservoir near Pattaya.

The Changwon District Prosecutors Office on Friday indicted the suspect, in his 20s, on charges of murdering and abandoning the body of a South Korean man while overseas, Yonhap news agency said.

South Korean prosecutors withheld the names of the accused and the victim. Thai police previously identified the accused as Lee Roun and the victim as Roh Eui-jong, 34.

Lee Roun was apprehended in Jeongeup city, about 210 kilometres south of Seoul, last month after fleeing from Thailand.

He and two alleged accomplices are accused of murdering Roh in Thailand. The victim's body was put in a barrel that was topped up with concrete before being thrown into Map Prachan reservoir in Bang Lamung district, on the fringe of Pattaya, in May.

Another suspect, Lee Young Jin, 27, was captured while in hiding in Phnom Penh and sent back to Thailand. Yonhap said South Korean police were in talks with Thai police about extraditing him to Seoul tto face charges there. 

The third alleged murderer, Kim Hyeonng Won, remains at large. Thai police suspect he crossed the border into Myanmar.

"In search of money and valuables, the suspects approached, murdered him [the victim] and abandoned his body in a foreign country beyond South Korea's jurisdiction," the South Korean news agency quoted a prosecutor as saying.  

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