Phop Phra police linked to killings

Published: 2/02/2010 at 12:00 AM

Bangkok Post Newspaper section: News

TAK : Officers from the Phop Phra police station have emerged as suspects in the killing of at least nine Karen workers from Burma whose bodies have been found in the past week.

The bodies were found in two different locations in two districts of northern Tak province.

The first four bodies were found last Wednesday. Two - a male and a female - were discovered in a cane field in Phop Phra district. Two others - a male and a female - were found in Mae Sot district. Two more female bodies were found on Sunday in a roadside grave in Phop Phra, and three more - two female and a male - were found yesterday by the roadside in Phop Phra.

Autopsy results show all nine were shot with a .22-calibre gun.

A source said officers at the Phop Phra district police station were suspected of involvement in the killings.

Police said 13 illegal migrant workers from Burma and their traffickers were arrested in tambon Khiri Rat in Phop Phra some time last month.

They tried to bribe police officers to stay in the country, but the officers killed them, the source said.

Relatives of the slain workers who travelled from Bangkok to identify the bodies in Tak said most of the dead came from Kayin state in Burma, across the border from Tak.

One worker questioned by police said he witnessed the killings and saw police officers leave the workers alone before a group of gunmen in plain clothes emerged and executed the workers.

The witness could not be sure whether the killers were police officers.

Pol Col Panya Suk-aim, head of Phop Phra police station, has reportedly ordered all officers at the station to file reports on their activities from Jan 23 to 28, including whether they fired their weapons. He also ordered a search of officers' vehicles, as authorities continue to look for more bodies.