Confusion over confession by suspect

While Suthep says ex-ranger had admitted to his crime, Army official at crime scene denies development

By Don Pathan
The Nation

Confusion over whether a man suspected of a killing spree in Yala on Tuesday had confessed continued yesterday as Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban told reporters in Bangkok that a former paramilitary ranger had admitted to the crime. Authorities on the ground said interrogation of the suspect had yet to reach any conclusion.

Suthep was quoting Panu Uthairat, the director of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre.

Fourth Army chief LtGeneral Udomchai Thammasarotrat, meanwhile, said that the suspect was still being interrogated and that the authorities had yet to obtain a confession.

Udomchai said the use of martial law had been approved against the suspect, Bannang Sata resident Pirapan Pandam, 27, because the area where the killing spree had been carried out was an extremely restive one.

"It doesn't matter if the suspect is a Buddhist or a Muslim. I am here to uphold the law," Udomchai told The Nation in a telephone interview.

In Bangkok, Suthep was quick to distance the government from the case. He told reporters that the incident that caused the deaths of four people and injuries to 21 was not the work of government security officials. Neither was it the work of Malay Muslim separatists, whom authorities accuse of being behind most of the violence in the deep South, he said.

A senior government official in the region said Pirapan, along with three other alleged culprits, may have been motivated by the fact that his older brother, Sombat, 32, was shot and killed while on a hunting trip in the outback of Bannang Sata district on April 27.

According to the government official, Pirapan is being held at a ranger unit in Raman district in Yala.

Authorities had to act quickly for fear that the incident would prompt serious retaliation from insurgents, the source said.

Efforts are being carried out to convince militant cells in Bannang Sata not to retaliate against what was billed as an isolated incident, he added.

Sombat was killed along with his dog while reportedly on a hunting trip. A village elder living near where the killing took place said the victim was out to hunt for pangolin, an endangered anteater that is trafficked for illegal meat and medicine markets.

Sombat had been warned repeatedly that there were insurgents in the area but insisted on carrying on with his hunting trip, the elder said.

Local and international human rights organisations said progovernment death squads had been employed in the past to settle scores, but officials insisted that target killings of suspects were not government policy.

Martial law permits detention of a suspect for 10 days without formal charges.

Pirapan and three others on a pickup truck were accused of carrying out the killing spree. The suspects, all in hoods, used AK47 and M16 automatic rifles to attack a teashop, their first target, less than 200 metres from an army outpost.

The four gunmen hit five more targets, including a village grocery store, two young men sitting on a motorbike in front of a local Islamic school, and other passers by on the street.

Eyewitnesses who survived the teashop attack said the four culprits were all hooded and did not say a word to each other.

They also added that the fact that it took about an hour before the authorities showed up at the scene raised questions over their seriousness about tracking down the gunmen.