SURVIVOR'S CLAIM
Cop 'executed my best friend'
Officer 'hit me, shot Leo twice, then fired at me'
A young Canadian woman told yesterday how a Thai policeman shot dead her best friend in Pai in the North, then shot another bullet into his heart as he lay on the ground.
Carly Reisig, 24, said the policeman had no grounds at all for the attack - and that after he shot fellow Canadian John Leo del Pinto, the officer turned his gun on her and shot her in the chest.
Speaking from her bed in hospital in Chiang Mai, Reisig, from Chilliwack, British Columbia, rejected a police statement that suggested Sgt-Major Uthai Dechawiwat, 37, had intervened to break up a fight and his gun had discharged in a struggle.
She pointed to her chest where the bullet was lodged close to her own heart.
"There never was a fight. That is not true," she said. "John was my ex-boyfriend, but still my best friend. We had nothing to argue about. We had been drinking in the Be-Bop Bar in Pai and were heading for a last drink at the Bamboo Bar near the bridge.
"We were walking together. My Thai boyfriend Fuen was walking slightly behind.
"A man came up to me on the road near Pee Dang's Restaurant and hit me for no reason.
"My face was painted with face paint, for fun, but I don't know why he hit me. We had never met him before, never seen him before. We were unarmed and walking down the road after a good night out.
"He was dressed in plain clothes, a white T-shirt. Leo shouted at him, 'You can't hit her!' and pushed him away from us. Then the man went to his motorbike and got his gun, and Leo tried to get it away from him.
"They had a struggle for the gun, then the man got control of the gun and stepped back and shot Leo directly in the face.
"Leo fell to the ground and the man pointed the gun at his heart and fired a second shot. Then he turned around to me and aimed for my heart and shot me in the chest.
"I blacked out and when I came to I saw Leo lying dead on the road beside me. My lungs filled up with blood and I couldn't breathe.
"I went to Pai Hospital and then to a hospital in Chiang Mai. They had to put a tube into my lungs to drain the blood so that I could breathe again.
"I can't believe that my best friend is dead and I've got a bullet right beside my heart.
"I have never been married, I am not pregnant. Leo was my ex-boyfriend from Canada. He had arrived in Pai a few days before to see me."
Sitting by her bed was her boyfriend Rattaporn Vara-wadee, an artist nicknamed Fuen.
He said: "Nothing we did gave this man the right to take lives. We are angry now and we need help and a good lawyer. We are shocked to hear that the policeman is already out on bail."
Asked again if they had been fighting, she replied: "Not at all, he was my best friend." She had spoken to del Pinto's family and said: "They are not doing well."
Suchart Pantai, the owner of Be-Bop Bar, said he saw the couple and Fuen leave his bar at about 1am. "There was no fighting. But I heard from other sources that they were play-fighting as they walked."
Reisig has been in Thailand for a year, leaving occasionally on visa runs. She has worked in Canada with physically and mentally handicapped people.
John Leo del Pinto, also 24, from Calgary in Alberta in west Canada, was a former music student who earned a living as a promoter and concert organiser.
Uthai Dechawiwat has been charged with murder, manslaughter and attempted murder, but the version of events issued by police in Pai is at total variance with Miss Reisig's story.
Case investigator Pol Lt-Colonel Sombat Panya said the couple had been drinking in a local pub and had become involved in a drunken brawl after del Pinto, who recently arrived in Thailand, found that Reisig was pregnant to a Thai man known as Fuen.
The couple continued arguing after they left the pub when Uthai arrived at the scene, near a bridge, on personal business. Uthai approached them and asked them to be calm but both foreigners turned to attack him.
The officer said Uthai was beaten to the ground by the couple. After managing to get up, Uthai pointed his service pistol to threaten away both foreigners, but del Pinto tried to snatch the pistol from him. After a scuffle, shots were fired and the couple went down.
Last night Graham Arscott, the father of Vanessa Arscott, 23, who was gunned down in Kanchanaburi with her boyfriend Adam Lloyd, 24, by Police Sgt-Major Wisetsingh said: "So sad. I feel so terribly sorry for this young man's family."
In the River Kwai case, Wisetsingh shot the couple dead in a fit of rage after being beaten to the ground by Lloyd, who it is believed thought the policeman was trying to hit on his girlfriend.
Like the Kanchanaburi case, the killing in the idyllic tourist village of Pai has the semblance of another police "loss of face" execution.
