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BANGKOK - THE Thai driver of a truck in which 54 Myanmar migrants suffocated to death has surrendered and confessed to his role in last week's human smuggling tragedy, police said on Wednesday.
Suchon Boonplong, 38, gave himself up to police on Tuesday morning, said Major General Apirak Hongthong, Ranong provincial police commander.
'He confessed that he was hired by the owner of the truck to transport those people to Phuket for 80,000 baht (S$3,442),' Maj. Gen. Apirak said.
Of the 120 migrants fleeing economic collapse in Myanmar and seeking a better life in Thailand, 37 women and 17 men suffocated to death in the stifling storage container with a broken ventilation system.
They had clambered into the container - measuring just six metres long by 2.2 metres wide - in southern Ranong province near Myanmar's border last Wednesday evening.
The men, women and children were trying to get to the resort island of Phuket to find work as labourers, but within hours they were dying.
Suchon told a press conference that he stopped answering his mobile phone and at first ignored the desperate bangs coming from inside the box, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported on Wednesday.
When he finally pulled over and opened the door, Suchon saw that many of his human cargo had died, so he ran away, the paper said.
Maj. Gen. Apirak said that Suchon faced charges of smuggling illegal migrants into Thailand and gross negligence causing death and injury. He could serve 10 years in prison if convicted.
Suchon is the third suspect arrested in connection with the deaths. The owner of the truck and the owner of the pier where the migrants were smuggled onto the container are already in police custody.
Of those who survived the horrific journey, 46 are in prison facing a 2,000 baht fine for illegally entering Thailand.
Maj. Gen. Apirak said that most could not afford the penalty and would therefore serve 10 days in prison.
Of four who have paid the fine, two are awaiting deportation and two are being held as witnesses, while children and teenagers among the migrants are being held in the Ranong immigration centre.
Myanmar is one of the world's poorest countries, its economy battered by decades of mismanagement under military rule and further hampered by Western sanctions imposed over the junta's human rights record.
Thousands of people from Myanmar illegally cross the border into Thailand each month seeking a better paid job, but often end up exploited by employers. -- AFP
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