Thai death truck driver surrenders to police

BANGKOK (Reuters) - The driver of a container truck inwhich 54 illegal migrants suffocated to death on their way fromarmy-ruled Myanmar to Thailand has surrendered to police aftera seven-day manhunt, police said on Tuesday.

Suchon Boonplong, who had been on the run since abandoningthe vehicle, said he had been hired for 74,000 baht (1,194pounds) to drive the truck from the border town of Ranong tothe Thai resort island of Phuket, Police Colonel KraithongChanthongbai told Reuters.

"He confessed," Kraithong said. "He said he was a driver.He said he had initially got 37,000 baht, half of the pay, andhe would have got the rest in Phuket."

Suchon is the first person to have confessed to a role inthe tragedy, which has shone a rare spotlight on the humansmuggling rings and the hundreds of thousands of migrantworkers coming to Thailand from the impoverished former Burma.

The 54 who died were among 120 people crammed into thestifling hot container for several hours. Survivors said theypounded on the sides and screamed at the driver as the air grewthinner after the air conditioning system broke down.

"We contacted the driver using a mobile phone but he toldus in Burmese to keep quiet and make no trouble," Tida Toy, 21,told the Bangkok Post newspaper. "He switched off the phone anddrove on."

The owner of the 20-ft (6.1 metre) truck and the owner of araft on which the migrants are thought to have crossed a riverfrom Myanmar have also been arrested but have denied being partof a human smuggling network, Kraithong said.

"They said they just rented the truck and fish raft. Butthey're still being held in custody," he said. "We suspect morepeople are involved and we will be making more arrests."

About 2 million migrants from across the region are workingin Thailand, most of them from Myanmar, where 46 years of armymisrule and low-level guerrilla war have crippled aonce-promising economy.

Only 500,000 are in the country legally, labour ministryfigures suggest.

Under Thai law, registered migrants have the same rights asThais, but in practice this is far from the case. They areroutinely denied access to such basic rights as education,medical care and freedom of movement.

The vast majority are unregistered and work illegally infactories, restaurants, at petrol pumps and as domestichelpers, or crew on fishing trawlers for a fraction of theminimum wage.

(Editing by Ed Cropley and Alex Richardson)