Surasak offers B100,000 bounty on gunman

PATONG: Patong Mayor Surasak Maneesri said today he would give 100,000 baht to anyone who can name either the gunman who shot at his Mercedes last month or the mastermind behind the shooting. Police have yet to make any arrests in connection with the June 23 assassination attempt, which took place at the traffic light near the Tesco-Lotus Supercenter. Three shots were fired through the driver’s side window, but Mayor Surasak escaped unharmed. “The reason I have decided to offer a reward is that I want people who may have witnessed the crime to come forward and tell police what they saw that night,” said the mayor. Surasak told the Gazette that he was frustrated by the lack of progress in the case, even though he had made requests to the governor and police to solve it. Referring to press reports in which he was accused of staging the shooting himself to garner sympathy votes for upcoming municipal elections, the mayor said, “I really hate the guy who said I staged the incident. “I want him to sit in a car – like I did – and I will shoot at him so that he can see how life-threatening it is. I’ll even give him 500,000 baht to do it.” The mayor added that he was exploring the possibility of taking legal action against those who had accused him of staging the shooting.