Warrants have been issued by the Trang Provincial Court for the arrests of four men under suspicion of involvement in the murders of three, possibly four people at an oil palm plantation in Sikao district of Trang province.
The burned remains of the three victims were found in a shallow grave in the plantation over the weekend. Several burned car tires, bullet casings and fuel containers were found nearby. A human skeleton was also discovered about 500 metres away.
One of the police investigators said that one of the four suspects tried to assert himself as an “influential figure” in the area by intimidating plantation owners into letting him “look after” their plantations.
He also said that the suspects came to the plantation last Saturday to steal the oil palm seed, but when they found the three employees there, they allegedly murdered them.
Then, some of the suspects went to the town to buy some old car tires. They used them as fuel with which to burn the bodies, in an attempt to conceal the crimes.
Police say that the fourth victim, the skeleton of whom was found, could have been killed elsewhere and his body taken to this plantation for burial.
