A Myanmar worker at a Bangkok scrap shop was arrested on Monday for allegedly stabbing his Karen colleague to death, police said, after following long-running bullying and racial insults.
Police apprehended Lin Miang Win, 32, at a factory where his Myanmar wife works in Petchakasem Soi 48 at about 4pm. He went into hiding there and prepare to flee to Myanmar after he allegedly stabbed Sun So May, 25, with a 15cm knife in the stomach several times at a scrap shop in the Bang Bon 5 area on Sunday night.
Mr Win told police he had worked legally at the shop for four years and had long been at odds with Sun because the Karen regularly attacked him with insulting or sarcastic remarks or gestures concerning differences between Myanmar and Karen people.
His colleague liked to insult him that his home in Myanmar did not have electricity and he could not afford to have a motorcycle among others.
Their conflict between both men worsened after the recent fighting between troops and rebels from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Association, according to Mr Win.
Shortly before the crime, Mr Win said Sun intentionally locked the shop's door to prevent him from going to his bedroom. He was able to get in after he called a Thai colleague to open the door. When he was about to sleep, Sun, who was drunk, "ordered" him to buy instant noodles and white spirits from a convenient store for him.
The Mynamar man said he went out to buy what the hector wanted because he did want to fight. But Sun would not stop harassing him after he got the stuff and ransacked his room.
This led to verbal argument and fist fight. Lin Miang Win said his rival was bigger and he could not fight him. At one point he grabbed a knife and stabbed at him in the fit of rage.
Pol Lt Col Sonchai Poonpol, investigative inspector at Bang Bon police station, said workers at the shop told police that the Myanmar man had been bullied by the Karen for a long time but the former tried to bear it as he had to send money back to his home country to feed his two-year-old child.
Pol Lt Col Sonchai said although the suspect committed the crime in a fit of rage but police would initially charge him with premeditated murder pending legal proceedings.