Court upholds life for killer Khanchit

SAMUT SAKHON: The Supreme Court yesterday upheld a life sentence handed down to former Democrat Party MP Khanchit Thapsuwan for the premeditated murder in 2011 of Udon Kraiwatnusorn, former president of the Samut Sakhon provincial administrative organisation.

Udon was murdered on Dec 25, 2011 at a PTT petrol station near kilometre marker No. 2 on Setthakij Road in tambon Tha Sai in Muang district.

He was washing his hands in the toilet when the killer approached and shot him 10 times with a .40 calibre handgun. He died at the scene.

Investigators later obtained a warrant for the arrest of Khanchit, then a Samut Sakhon MP, for the murder.

As an MP, he could not be arrested while the House of Representatives was in session, but after a public outcry he offered to waive his immunity to fight the case in court. During the police investigation, officers handing the case said they had stumbled on something unusual about the killing.

They said they had never come across a hired gunman using a .40 calibre handgun — a powerful firearm — before. The victim was shot multiple times, suggesting the killer was not experienced in handling the weapon — a skilled gunman would have been able to kill Udon with one or two shots, the investigators said.

A high-ranking police officer had said .40 pistols are not commonly used in Thailand. It would not make sense for a hired gunman to use a weapon he was not familiar with. Gunmen normally opt for more widely available handguns such as a 9mm or 11mm, according to a police investigator at Provincial Police Region 3.

The provincial court on Nov 12, 2014 sentenced Khanchit to death for premeditated murder. In October 2015, the Appeal Court reduced the sentence to life imprisonment. Prosecutors then forwarded the case to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, in its judgement delivered yesterday, upheld the life sentence handed down by the Appeal Court and ordered Khanchit to pay 13.3 million baht compensation to Udon’s family.

Public interest in the case was high, and a crowd gathered to hear the ruling at the Samut Sakhon Provincial Court, where it was read.

Khanchit, 46, graduated with a communications degree from Rangsit University before he later obtained a master’s degree in Business Administration at Cleveland State University in the US. He became an MP for Samut Sakhon in 2007 on the Democrat ticket. The 48-year-old Udon, meanwhile, was a political science graduate from Ramkhamhaeng University.