Police in Thailand have issued an arrest warrant for a Cambodian national suspected of directing the murder of a former Cambodian opposition lawmaker in Bangkok last week.
Maj. Gen. Atthaporn Wongsiripreeda, commander of Metropolitan Police Division 1, told reporters yesterday that Ly Ratanakraksmey, 43, was believed to have hired the Thai gunman who killed Lim Kimya, 73, the Bangkok Post reported.
Kimya, a former member of parliament for the banned opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was gunned down shortly after arriving in Bangkok on January 7. The accused gunman, a former Thai marine by the name of Ekkalak Pheanoi, was arrested the following day in Cambodia’s Battambang province and extradited to Thailand on January 11. During his interrogation, he quickly confessed to carrying out the assassination.
After initially refusing to divulge to police the identity of the person who had hired him, Atthaporn said that Ekkalak told police that Ly “harbored a grudge against the victim and asked him to ‘handle it.’” He alleged that he was hired in Thailand and had no knowledge of the target’s background.
Atthaporn said the Ly was known in Pattaya by the Thai name “Somwang” and had made more than 100 visits to Thailand over the past few years. Ekkalak said that Ly had given him “financial assistance” after he was expelled from the navy for disciplinary violations. Earlier this week, Atthaporn told the media that the gunman took the job “to pay a debt of gratitude to someone who had helped him during a tough period.” According to the Bangkok Post cited police sources as saying that Ekkalak was paid 60,000 baht ($1,736) for the hit.
Thai police have also issued an arrest warrant for another Cambodian national by the name of Pich Kimsrin, who is suspected of acting as a “spotter” for Ekkalak. Thai authorities have issued an Interpol red notice for both men.
I’ve already pointed out the similarities between the assassination of Kimya and the killing of the political organizer Kem Ley in 2016. In the latter case, the gunman was also a former soldier who claimed that the killing was the result of a personal dispute. But in neither case is it likely that these individuals were truly the “masterminds” of the assassinations.
Indeed, the connections between both Cambodian suspects and the CPP government lend weight to the claims of exiled opposition figures that the killing was ordered from the highest levels of the Cambodian state. A government spokesperson has denied official involvement.
According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), which has dug into the background of the various Cambodian nationals connected to the case, Ratanakrasmey is the former head of the CNRP’s Thailand Workers’ Working Group, which “attempted to attract support from the thousands of Cambodian workers living in Thailand.” He joined the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) in 2022, one of many former CNRP members who defected to the ruling party after the CNRP’s court-ordered dissolution in 2017. Atthaporn also reportedly said that Ly is an adviser to former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who stepped down and handed power to his son Hun Manet in August 2023.
Previously, RFA identified Pich Kimsrin as the brother of Pich Sros, the president of the CPP-aligned Cambodian Youth Party, who filed the legal complaint that led to the banning of the CNRP in 2017.