Beats behind bars: Belgian shooting suspect caught spinning tunes in Phuket nightclub
A fugitive wanted for a shooting in Belgium ten years ago has been apprehended in Phuket, where he was spinning tracks as a DJ in a Patong nightspot.
Phuket immigration police, led by Police Major General Phanthana Nuchanart, swooped in on 36 year old Achmal (surname undisclosed) at an apartment on Patong beach. The wanted man, holding both Belgian and Moroccan passports, had been issued charges for attempted murder, illegal firearm possession, and unlawful possession of ammunition and gun accessories – all stemming from a road rage shooting on January 19, 2014.
The suspect had been slipping through the cracks, using his Belgian passport for multiple entries into Thailand and employing a Moroccan one to keep authorities off his trail. His elusive journey took him through Bangkok, Si Sa Ket, and ultimately to the shores of Phuket.
The Office of the Attorney-General had ordered the arrest at the request of Belgian authorities, aiming to extradite Achmal to face justice in Belgium. The Appeals Court in Brussels had already sentenced him to 10 years behind bars, reported Bangkok Post.
In related news, in 2014, French police arrested a man suspected of being involved in the shooting of three people at Brussels’ Jewish Museum, official sources in Belgium and France said.
The 29 year old Frenchman was arrested in the southern French city of Marseilles on May 30, 2014, and had a Kalashnikov and another gun with him, according to a French police source. The man, from the northern city of Roubaix, had been in jail in 2012. French media reported that the man was suspected of having stayed in Syria with jihadist groups in 2013.
In other news, The Crime Suppression Division apprehended a man who had been on the run after being sentenced to a decade in prison for a sexual assault offence. The 42 year old fugitive was caught at a market in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district on January 7.
