Police claim to have circumstantial evidence that Praween Chanklai, aka “Kamnan Nok”, ordered the shooting of the two highway police officers at his house, because all his security guards were alerted in advance and armed. Additionally, other people and some cars were told to leave, allegedly to pave way for an escape, Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn, the deputy national police chief, said late last night (Friday).
Images from the CCTV system, relating to the shooting on September 6th, have been released to the media by police.
Pol Gen Surachate said that Praween is believed to be the one who disconnected two CCTV cameras in the room where a dinner was being hosted for a group of police officers, possibly because someone might have advised him that it would be highly inappropriate for armed officers to be seen shirtless and drinking alcohol.
There were 15 surveillance cameras in the house. The servers connected to 13 of them were found to be functioning well, another was malfunctioning and the other stopped working on August 23rd, he said.
The CCTV images show that five of the 25 police officers present helped to take the two injured officers to hospital after the shooting.
Almost all the police officers present were armed, but none of them even attempted to arrest the shooters, said Surachate, adding they will all face charges for dereliction of duty. The senior police officers present quickly fled the scene, he said.
The shooting was allegedly motivated by the rejection by one of the highway police officers, Pol Maj Sivakorn Saibua, of a request from Praween to promote one of his relatives, who is also a highway police officer, said Surachate, adding that he was possibly also unhappy with the officer’s enforcement activities against overloaded trucks, as Praween operates a fleet of them.
