NATIONAL Police Chief Pol. General Chakthip Chaijinda personally questioned Bang Phat, the key suspect in the massacre of a Krabi village headman and seven members of his family, who claimed he shot them dead because he was stressed out chasing a 3 million baht debt, INN News said today (July 16).
Pol. Gen. Chakthip together with Deputy National Police Chief Pol. Gen. Chalermkiat Sriworakhan and senior police officers as well as an investigation team went to an army camp where Suriphat or Bang Phat Bannopwongsakul, 41, and seven other suspects were being held to question them.
Bang Phat reportedly confessed that he talked all the suspects into joining the mass killings and that they plotted the massacre at a house in Muang district of Krabi. This key suspect allegedly said he was trying to get 3 million baht back from Vorayuth Sanghlang, the dead Krabi village headman.
He also reportedly said that on the day of the massacre they changed to camouflage outfits similar to what rangers wear to make it easy to commute and clear police checkpoints should they run into any.
The other suspects pointed to Bang Phat as having plotted the whole massacre to make it seem as if the village headman killed his family and himself because he was in dire need of money and was facing a lot of problems. He even made the dead village headman call a close friend to desperately borrow 500,00 baht before he shot all 11 of them in the head.
Pol-General Chakthip and his team also went to a single-story house on a 50-square-wah land plot in Krabi’s Muang District where this gang plotted the massacre and there they collected some evidence including a bullet, a toothbrush and a cigarette butt plus fingerprints which have been taken for analysis.
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Top: National Police Chief Pol. General Chakthip Chaijinda and his team questioning Krabi massacre suspects today. Photo: INN News