BANGKOK (Reuters) – A suspected killer accused of killing a Cambodian former opposition lawmaker in a brazen attack in Bangkok was handed over to Thai authorities from Cambodia on Saturday, where he was arrested after crossing the border.
Thai national Ekkalak Paenoi, 41, faces charges including premeditated murder in the killing of Lim Kimye, 74, in the Thai capital on Tuesday.
“The suspect confessed to the crime and that he is the person on the arrest warrant,” Somprasong Yentuam, assistant national police chief, told reporters. “He looked stressed.”
Ekkalak, a motorcycle taxi driver who police told Reuters was a former marine, was taken to Bangkok after Thai police coordinated with Cambodian authorities. A Thai court issued a warrant and he was arrested on Wednesday.
Lim Kimya, a Cambodian and French citizen, was killed by a gunman who fired three shots, hours after he arrived from Cambodia with his wife and brother and traveled by bus to Bangkok, police said.
He was a member of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, a popular opposition group that was dissolved by a court over an alleged treason plot ahead of elections in 2018. The party dismissed the alleged plot as a fabrication.
The Cambodian government, led by the Cambodian People’s Party for more than four decades, has carried out a relentless, years-long crackdown on its opponents, with dozens of politicians and activists jailed, many in absentia, and hundreds more fleeing into exile. She denied the persecution of the opposition.
Lim Kimya was not a prominent member of the opposition movement. Police and the Thai government said they did not have to determine a motive for his murder.
