BANGKOK (Reuters) – A suspected hitman accused of killing a former Cambodian opposition lawmaker in a daring attack in Bangkok was handed over to Thai authorities on Saturday from Cambodia, where he was arrested after crossing the border.
Thai citizen Ekalak Paynoy, 41, faces charges including premeditated murder in the Tuesday shooting death of Lim Kimya, 74, in the Thai capital.
“The suspect confessed to committing the crime and to being the person mentioned in the arrest warrant,” Somprasong Yentwam, assistant chief of the National Police, told reporters. “He seemed nervous.”
Ekalak, a motorcycle taxi driver who police officers told Reuters was a former Marine, was transferred to Bangkok after Thai police coordinated with Cambodian authorities. A Thai court issued the arrest warrant and he was arrested on Wednesday.
Lim Kimya, a Cambodian and French national, was killed by a gunman who fired three bullets, hours after he arrived from Cambodia with his wife and brother and traveled to Bangkok by bus, police said.
He was a member of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, a popular opposition group that was dissolved by a court over an alleged treason plot before the 2018 elections. The party rejected the alleged plot as fabricated.
Cambodia's government, led by the Cambodian People's Party for more than four decades, has waged a brutal, years-long campaign of repression against its opponents, with dozens of politicians and activists receiving prison sentences, many in absentia, and hundreds more fleeing into exile. She denied persecuting the opposition.
Lim Kimya was not a prominent member of the opposition movement. The Thai police and government said they had not yet determined the motive behind his killing.
