• 
• 

Published on February 10, 2008

Commissioner Surasee Kosolnavin said he believed that neither Reisig nor her boyfriend - Rattaporn Varavadee - were safe in the town after giving evidence to local police. The two had said they hoped to stay long enough to say goodbye to friends.

"We moved her not least because we were concerned her belongings could turn up at a later date with something illegal in them. This sort of thing has happened," Surasee said.

This followed an incident outside the prosecutor's office in Mae Hong Son in which Lt-Colonel Sombat Panya, head of the police investigation, approached Rattaporn, a witness against him.

Rattaporn, together with Reisig, has claimed the fatal shooting, by Sergeant Uthai Dechawiwat, of Leo Del Pinto, 24, from Calgary, was murder, not an accident as the policeman claimed.

Referring to his being approached by Lt-Colonel Sombat, Rattaporn said, "He told me to go and see him in his office in Pai. It's not safe for me to go to Pai. I have been imaging the variety of things which could happen to me."

Andrew Drummond

Special to The Nation