Two cops held for Ko Noi murder
PHUKET CITY: Two Phuket Provincial Police officers have been arrested in connection with the March 14 assassination of Preecha “Ko Noi” Kraitas, owner of the Phuket Shooting Range and the Fisherman Way housing estate.
K. Preecha was shot twice in the head while driving along Wiset Rd at 11 pm with his wife and son. He died in hospital the following day.
A local Thai-language newspaper identified the two men arrested as Pol Capt Wanchana Polpalangkul and Pol Sgt Pongsak Kosi-ratanapibal, both attached to the province’s élite Special Operations Unit.
The two were arrested just after midnight on March 18 by a posse of police led by the deputy chief of the Bangkok-based Central Investigations Division, Pol Maj Gen Suchat Meuankaew. He was accompanied by many of the island’s top law enforcers.
According to the report, Sgt Pongsak cracked after more than four hours of questioning, telling investigators he had been hired by Capt Wanchana “to finger the target” for a professional gunman from Petchaburi Province.
Pongsak and Wanchana were charged with premeditated murder and conspiracy “in connection with others still at large”, the report said. The “others” were not identified.
