Fugitive doctor-killer found hiding in Myanmar

23 December 2016
Fugitive doctor-killer found hiding in Myanmar
The sun setting down as people drive and ride around a busy road at Myawaddy town, Karen State. Photo: Lynn Bo Bo/EPA

A former Police General Hospital doctor, Pol Col Supat Laohawattana, who was handed a death sentence for murdering his migrant farm worker, has been arrested in Myanmar, reports say.
Supat fled before a Phetchaburi court delivered its judgement in the case on May 1, 2015.
He and his two sons, Ake and Akara, were charged with the murder of a Myanmar worker.
The court sentenced Supat, in his absence, and Ake to death. Akara was sentenced to life, but the sentence was commuted to 25 years and three months in prison as he was only 19 when the crime was committed.
After hunting Supat for more than a year, Phetchaburi police recently followed a close aide to the former doctor who crossed the border in Tak's Mae Sot district to meet the fugitive in Myanmar, the sources said.
After discovering his whereabouts, investigators passed the information to police chief Pol Gen ChakthipChaijinda, who contacted Myanmar police, leading to Supat's arrest.
According to the sources, Supat was detained along with a large amount of cash at a house near the Thai-Myanmar border.
A senior Myanmar crime journalist based in Myawaddy said Supat was arrested and charged with illegal entry and possession of a fake Myanmar ID card.
Myanmar authorities plan to indict Supat on Dec 28 in the Mawlamyine provincial court before deporting him to Thailand.
Pol Gen Chakthip, however, said Wednesday he had never received any reports about Supat's arrest from Myanmar.
According to an initial investigation by Myanmar authorities, Supat entered Myanmar illegally through the Three Pagodas Pass in Kanchanaburi and had kept a low profile with his Myanmar wife up until his arrest.
In late 2012, Sawang Numjui, the owner of a pineapple plantation in Phetchaburi, filed a complaint with Nonthaburi police that a pickup truck belonging to his son, Samart Numjui, and daughter-in-law, Orasa Kerdsap, who had disappeared more than three years earlier, had been found at an abandoned house belonging to Supat in Nonthaburi.
Mr Sawang believed Samart and Orasa had been killed.
An investigation led to searches of Supat's orchard in Ban Tha Marid in tambonKladLuang of Phetchaburi's  Tha Yang district and his clinic in Bangkok, which revealed a large quantity of guns and ammunition.
The investigation also revealed there were many illegal Myanmar migrants working in Supat's orchard.
While digging up the orchard, police found three skeletons. One of them had been shot in the head. A DNA test revealed the remains were that of Ita, a Myanmar worker.
Supat was later arrested in Tha Yang district and charged with human trafficking, murder, theft and concealing dead bodies.
He fled before being found guilty.
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