SONGKHLA - The Na Thawi Provincial Court has issued arrest warrants for five suspects in the Aug 16 car robberies and hostage taking.
The court approved the warrants on Monday, hours after Deputy national police chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul filed the evidence to support a request for warrants.
Pol Gen Srivara, who is in Songkhla to supervise the investigation, said the evidence included the results of tests on DNA samples collected from the stolen vehicles, which were all later found, and eyewitness accounts.
He said two of the five suspects had been positively identified, Bukholi Lamso and Rosari Lamso. Samples of their DNA were found and matched in an abandoned vehicle in Pattani’s Khok Pho district.
The five holdup gunmen were believed to be in hiding in the area bordering Songkhla and Pattani, he said.
The series of car robberies started in Pattani, where armed men held up a married couple, fish vendors, and stole their pickup truck in Yarang district about 4.30am last Wednesday.
The stolen vehicle was allegedly used by the suspects, who dressed in clothing similar to the security forces, to travel to a used-car dealership, Wang To Car Centre, in Songhla’s Na Thawi district. They stole six pickups from there and abducted four people, including the shop owner.
One hostage was killed by the gunmen and another wounded and left for dead. The other two escaped.
One of the gunmen was killed by police after a chase when he drove through a checkpoint set up after the holdups.
