Thai police have arrested three suspects in the attempted murder of a US national who was embroiled in a property dispute in Hua Hin, an upmarket beach resort, media reports said Wednesday.
Police on Tuesday arrested three Thai men in Hua Hin, 130 kilometres south-west of Bangkok, as key suspects in the near fatal shooting of Donald Whiting on October 24, reported the Bangkok Post.
The three men confessed to having been hired by the wife of a foreign developer to murder Whiting, 65, for 200,000 baht (5,714 dollars), dpa reported.
Whiting, an ex-marine who has been living in Hua Hin for the past five years, was involved in a property dispute with a foreign developer who had been contracted to build a 13.6-million-baht villa in the resort for him and his wife Dolly Samson.
The US couple claim that the contractor took their money and left them with an unfinished, sub-standard concrete monstrosity instead of the Thai-Bali style mansion they had dreamed of.
Whiting's car was set of fire in July 2008, and shortly afterwards he was shot in the neck, leaving him partially paralysed.
The Whiting property scandal was one of many to be reported in the "royal" resort, which is a favourite summer retreat for Thai high society and more recently has drawn a plethora of world-class hotel chains and posh boutique getaways.
Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 81, is a frequent resident of the resort at his Klai Kang Won or "Far From Worries" palace, built in 1928 by king Rama VII.
The Whiting case was one of four unsolved crimes that newly appointed Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva last week ordered the national police chief to solve.
The other cases include the slaying of four Saudi nationals in 1989 and 1990, the disappearance and suspected murder of human rights lawyer Somchai Neelpaijit in 2004 and the 2003 slaying of Kornthep Viriya, a shipping agent and key witness in a tax evasion case against a company owned by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
