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Injured Canadian says Thai policeman lied about fight

"The policeman, who is about 1.6m, was beaten to the ground by the man, a bodybuilder 1.8m tall, and the hippy woman."

Wanchai Suwanririkate, police chief of Mae Hong Son's Pai District

A Canadian woman who was wounded in a scuffle with a Thai policeman said the officer attacked her, fatally shot her friend and then fabricated a story that the pair had picked a fight with him, a newspaper reported yesterday.

Carly Reisig, 24, was recovering from a gunshot wound near her heart at a hospital in northern Thailand.

Her friend, Canadian John Leo Del Pinto, 25, died early on Sunday from two bullets fired from the handgun of an off-duty policeman.

The Nation newspaper quoted Reisig as saying the pair had left a bar in the Pai District of northern Mae Hong Son when a Thai man approached them and "hit me for no reason."

Del Pinto tried to push the man away but he went to his nearby motorbike and returned with a gun, she was quoted as saying.

Del Pinto tried to gain control of the gun, but the Thai man shot him twice, including once in the face, Reisig said.

The man then turned to Reisig and fired a shot at her chest, the newspaper quoted her as saying.

The Thai man was identified by police as an off-duty officer, Sergeant Uthai Dechawiwat, who was not in uniform. He told investigators the shooting was an accident.

He was subsequently charged with premeditated murder and released on bail, police Colonel Sombat Panya said.

According to Uthai, the Canadians were having a lovers' quarrel at a bar in Pai and when they stepped outside the argument turned physical, at which point he tried to break up the fight, Sombat said.

The officer said Del Pinto tried to grab his pistol and the gun "accidentally went off" three times, Sombat said.

"The policeman, who is about 1.6m, was beaten to the ground by the man, a bodybuilder 1.8m tall, and the hippy woman," Pai police chief Wanchai Suwanririkate told reporters on Monday.

Reisig denied Uthai's account.

"There was never a fight. That is not true," the Nation quoted her as saying.

Police initially reported she was pregnant and the fetus was unharmed by the attack. But Reisig later denied being pregnant and police appeared to backtrack from the claim.
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