Fighting chance for ‘Mekong Godfather’
Wednesday, 13 February 2013 18:00
S.H.A.N.
He had withdrawn his guilty plea in court on 20 December after being sentenced for the murder of 13 sailors on the Mekong on 5 October 2011.
The Intermediate People’s Court of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, also sentenced 3 of his colleagues to death and another to 8 year jail. The Yunnan higher court later upheld the verdict.
According to an informed source, his subordinates, especially Hsang Kham and Yilai, appear to be impossible to elude the court decision. “They were caught by the close circuit TV camera,” he said. “But with Naw Kham, it (his guilt) was only by conjecture: authorities believed the killing wouldn’t have been carried out without his orders.”
Naw Kham himself said he did not order the sailors to be killed.
A Thai legal consultant agrees. “You must know by now that lawyers don’t play by the truth, but only by the rules,” he told SHAN. “They (truth and rules) are not always the same.”
Naw Kham is being defended by a Hong Kong-based lawyer. His appeal now awaits final decision from Beijing.
Naw Kham, 43, who is a dead ringer for Thai action star Ake Rangsiriroj, had been an officers in the Mong Tai Army led by the late Khun Sa (1934-2007) until he surrendered in 1996. He then became a Burma Army run People’s Militia Force (PMF) leader in Tachilek. He escaped his government captors in 2006 to appear on the Mekong in the Golden Triangle area, where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet to run a protection racket. He was caught on 25 April 2012 in Laos.
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