Rajan's former lawyer to produce key witness

BANGKOK, DEC. 11. The underworld don Chhota Rajan's former lawyer has said he will produce a key witness to payment of a 25 million Baht bribe allegedly made by the gangster to buy his freedom, and supply further evidence to an inquiry panel.

The lawyer, Sirichai Piyapichetkul, has said his witness, currently overseas, would testify that a senior police official took the bribe.

Sirichai claimed that Rajan had told him after his escape that he paid the bribe to the guard at a hospital from where the gangster escaped last month. Rajan and the Thai police have denied the allegation.

Meanwhile, The Nation newspaper, in an editorial, today pondered whether Rajan paid bribes to slip out or if he really did climb down a rope as he claimed.

The editorial, `With a plot like this, who needs bad movies?' said ``a powerful crime boss escapes an assassin's attack with gunshot wounds. He ends up in a hospital in a foreign country where he feels anything but secure. So he hires a group of professional rock-climbers to sneak him out. A waiting car takes him to his yacht, which then cruises to an airport where a private jet is waiting and he is free''.

- PTI

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