Protesters' guard arrested for shooting in Bangkok

BANGKOK, March 20 (TNA) - Thai police have publicly introduced a suspected gunman who worked as a security guard of the anti-government the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) for allegedly involving in a shooting at a then PDRC demonstration site in Bangkok's Laksi area on February 1, 2014. The police told a press conference on Thursday that the arrested “popcorn” gunman is not a scapegoat and his three accomplices will be arrested soon. The 24-year-old arrested man, identified as Wiwat Yodprasit from Phitsanulok Province in the Lower Thai North, told the press conference that he had received a short-barrel M16 rifle from a group of PDRC guards and on February 1, a friend left with him the rifle, put in a popcorn bag, when he was in a rest room; so, he decided to use the gun at a clash at the Laksi Intersection, confessing that he fired all 20 rounds. The arrested man said that he had joined the PDRC demonstrations as a guard for more than two months, during which he had been paid 300 baht a day, and that he did not know the commander of the shooting who had made orders behind him. The arrested gunman was charged with attempted murder, improper firearm possession and violation of the emergency decree. Assistant National Police Chief Police Lieutenant General Winai Thongsong acknowledged, meanwhile, that police are seeking the court's approval of arrest warrants for three more suspects whom police have already identified, and that police have also identified the man who leads the PDRC guard group, to which the arrested gunman referred and allegedly sent Wiwat to hide in Surat Thani Province in the Thai South, his wife's hometown. According to the assistant national police chief, five armed groups of PDRC guards have remained at the PDRC's demonstration site on Chaeng Watthana Road in the capital, with each group consisting of a dozen of men who have long been trained to use weapons and to carry war weapons. (TNA)