Police in Thailand have issued an arrest warrant for a Cambodian national suspected of directing the murder of a former Cambodian opposition lawmaker in Bangkok last week.
Maj. Gen. Atthaporn Wongsiripreeda, commander of Metropolitan Police Division 1, told reporters yesterday that Ly Ratanakraksmey, 43, was believed to have hired the Thai gunman who killed Lim Kimya, 73, the Bangkok Post reported.
Kimya, a former member of parliament for the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was gunned down shortly after arriving in Bangkok on January 7. The accused gunman, a former Thai marine by the name of Ekkalak Pheanoi, was arrested the following day in Cambodia’s Battambang province and extradited to Thailand on January 11. During his interrogation, he quickly confessed to carrying out the assassination.
