The gunman who killed a former Cambodian opposition lawmaker in central Bangkok last week is refusing to reveal who ordered the assassination out of fear for his family’s safety, Thai police said.
According to a report in the Bangkok Post, Maj. Gen. Atthaporn Wongsiripreeda, commander of Metropolitan Police Division 1, said yesterday that police had questioned Ekkalak Pheanoi, who had confessed to the January 7 killing of Lim Kimya, a former MP for the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).
Ekkalak, a 42-year-old former marine, told police that he took the job from someone who had helped him when he was in trouble after his dismissal from navy service, Atthaporn said, but he refused to identify who hired him to carry out the killing. “He refused to give in-depth information… and feared that such information would affect some party,” Atthaporn said. Ekkalak was arrested by police in western Cambodia on January 8.
In addition to staying mum on the mastermind of the killing, Atthaporn added that Ekkalak had refused to meet relatives, including his mother, who attempted to visit him in jail. As the Post reported, he “told his mother by phone that he wanted to be punished in prison and then ended the call.” He added that the suspect was also unwilling to re-enact the crime and seek bail.
The Bangkok Post cited an unnamed police source who said much the same thing. In the newspaper’s paraphrase of the source, Ekkalak “confessed to the murder but would not finger any other suspect. He told police that he did not want to bring trouble to his family and other people close to him.”
Needless to say, all of this is highly suspicious behavior and, along with the fact that Ekkalak immediately headed east toward Cambodia after committing the murder, confirms the widespread suspicion that Kimya’s killing was ordered by someone powerful within Cambodia, if not by the government itself. In certain respects, the killing bears a resemblance to the daylight assassination of Kem Ley, a popular political activist and commentator, who was shot dead at a petrol station in Phnom Penh on July 10, 2016. In that case, too, the killing was carried out by a former soldier who was arrested quickly and then remained mum under questioning by the Cambodian police, sticking to his story that he committed the murder due to an unpaid personal debt.
Kimya, a 73-year-old dual French-Cambodian citizen, was shot dead in front of his wife and brother by a waiting gunman in Bangkok’s Phra Nakhon district, shortly after getting off a bus from Siem Reap, Cambodia. He was elected to parliament in the national election of July 2013, when the CNRP, a new party formed from the merger of two existing opposition parties, came close to toppling the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). The party was then banned by court order in late 2017, and most of its leadership was driven into exile.
Since then, members of the CNRP and its successor parties have been subject to intimidation, violent attacks, and politically motivated arrests. Kimya was one of the few former parliamentarians who remained in Cambodia. While he was no longer involved in formal politics, he remained an outspoken critic of the prevailing political arrangements in Cambodia. He posted frequently on social media about the predatory and unaccountable nature of the Cambodian government and its senior leadership, right up to Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, Hun Sen, who ruled the country for 38 years prior to 2023.
Adding to the evidence of a Cambodian connection is the fact that the Thai police are also pursuing a second man, a Cambodian national named Pich Kimsrin, who supposedly acted as a “spotter” who followed Kimya on the bus from Cambodia. According to an investigation by Radio Free Asia, which was based on publicly available information, media reports, and social media posts, Pich Kimsrin appears to be the brother of Pich Sros, president of the Cambodian Youth Party, which is aligned with the CPP. Notably, RFA reported that Pich Sros, who currently holds a minor government position, filed the first complaint seeking the CNRP’s dissolution in 2017.
Whether all of these facts and irregularities lead the Thai police to dig more deeply into the case, or the French government to put pressure on Cambodia to cooperate in tracking down Kimya’s likely killer, remains to be seen. Ekkalak was today moved to the criminal court, and the police are requesting an extension of his detention while they continue with their investigation. Even then, any investigation that leads across the border into Cambodia is likely to encounter a brick wall of official silence.
