A Spanish man who is the prime suspect in the gruesome murder of a fellow Spaniard was arrested in Cambodia, where he is believed to have fled after the victim’s dismembered body was recovered piece by piece from Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River, police said yesterday.
The suspect identified as Artur Segarra Princep, 36, was arrested on Sunday evening at a restaurant in the Cambodian coastal town of Sihanoukville, where he had checked into a guesthouse a few days earlier, regional police chief General Chuon Narin said.
“We received a request from Thai police to arrest this man, and after launching an investigation we found him,” Chuon Narin said. “We will hand him over to Thailand.”
Photo: AP
Thai police have identified the victim as David Bernat of Spain, who was described as a consultant. They have speculated that he was abducted, tortured and forced to transfer a large amount of money before being killed.
Thai police yesterday sent a helicopter to Cambodia to try to expedite the suspect’s return, said a senior Thai police official in Bangkok who attended a meeting at Bangkok police headquarters on the murder case. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Senior Thai police yesterday met in Bangkok about the murder case. An official at the meeting said a helicopter was sent to Cambodia.
Thai police have declined to publicly comment on media reports of large transfers of money from Bernat’s bank account to accounts in Spain and Singapore.
Police had obtained records showing that Segarra had withdrawn money from ATMs in the area as recently as Thursday, and also had video of him with an unidentified woman and in a black Isuzu pickup truck.
Thai immigration police said Segarra had visited Thailand frequently, but his latest visa expired late last year.
Records show that Bernat also visited Thailand many times, arriving most recently on Jan. 19 on a flight from Iran. He was last seen alive leaving his Bangkok apartment on Jan. 20.
Medical examiners said they believe he died between Jan. 25 and Jan. 27, with the cause being suffocation.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of