Under the agreement, BAE Systems will provide engineering support and advice during construction of the vessel in Thailand.

“We’re looking forward to building and strengthening our relationship with Thailand’s shipbuilding industry. This contract to support delivery of a second Offshore Patrol Vessel to the Royal Thai Navy is a clear endorsement of our versatile Offshore Patrol Vessel design,” Nigel Stewart, commercial director at BAE Systems’ Naval Ships business, said in a statement.

Three of these ships are already in service in Brazil and three more are under construction for the UK Royal Navy.

The company said the Royal Thai Navy accepted its first 90-metre Offshore Patrol Vessel, HTMS Krabi, from Bangkok Dock in 2013. It is a variant of the baseline BAE Systems design. HTMS Krabi has already completed around 1,000 days at sea.

The court said it doubted the prosecutor’s evidence linked the officers to the crimes.

The four former subordinates and their boss, former Pol Captain Nat Chonnitiwanich, were found guilty of abuse of authority and assault by the lower court in 2014. Nat was given a seven-year jail term while the four officers received five years’ jail each. The four men then appealed, leading to their acquittal yesterday due to the court’s doubts.

The lawsuit said that on January 6 and 7, 2007, Nat and his team detained the couple for alleged possession of 20 ‘yaba’ pills in Nakhon Si Thammarat’s Thung Song district, tortured them to obtain confessions and demanded Bt200,000 for their release. The couple, who were turned over to police to face legal action, were later acquitted.

Now they have issued an arrest warrant for a woman who allegedly helped the suspects dig the victim’s |shallow grave, Sri Nakarin superintendent Pol Colonel Wichai Wichayanareupol said yesterday.

Wichai said on Monday night, police picked up two suspects who surrendered to police in Chumphon, to take them – together with two previously-arrested suspects – to re-enact the crime for a case report confession later. One suspect, who surrendered in Chumphon, reportedly told police they killed the friend after a previous argument and then gang-raped and assaulted his three-month pregnant girlfriend before pushing her off the side of an embankment

The drugs had an estimated street value of Bt200 million.

The three suspects were Jamras Denpreecha, 54, Lertsak Phuripanyanant, 37, and another Shan man identified only as ‘Chai’. The former two men were arrested separately in Lat Phrao and Bang Kapi in Bangkok, while Chai was nabbed in Chiang Rai’s Mae Sai district on Monday.

Pol Maj-Gen Pornchai Charoenwong, chief of NSB Division 3, said the arrest came after an investigation found that Chai acted as a narcotics distributor in the North, smuggling illicit drugs in spare car tyres for storage in Bangkok. Undercover police conducted a sting operation to buy 27 kg of ice, which resulted in the drugs being delivered on Monday to a parking lot by Lertsak and a search of accomplice Jamras’ home, where a further 500,000 ‘yaba’ pills and 4.8kg of ice was found.

National police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda said the gang was part of a network under the late Golden Triangle drug lord Khun Sa.

NSB chief Pol Lt-General Rewat Klinkesorn said police also issued arrest warrants for two accomplices – a Shan couple who ran a gold shop and money exchange service in Chiang Rai

Pol Lt-Colonel Somboon Sarasit told a press conference yesterday that the meeting of DSI and attorneys resolved to proceed with an investigation of money laundering against the key suspect and former chairman of the co-operative Supachai Srisupa-aksorn, along with the recipients of 878 cashier’s cheques without any apparent debts with the co-operative. Among them were Wat Phra Dhammakaya, which had received some Bt2 billion in donations and the money was transferred to bank accounts of the abbot and other monks at the temple.

Somboon further said that DSI also recently seized three more assets of Supachai. They were: the Bt168 million he wired to another person who then bought a plot of land to build a Bt20 million-worth resort; a 1,984-rai plot of land worth Bt367 million in Nakhon Ratchasima province; and a three-rai plot of land worth Bt23 million.

The rescue operation relied on information provided by a Myanmar man who successfully ran away from the suspected traffickers, who were also from Myanmar.

“We have finally discovered a small place where 29 victims were locked inside on the province’s Siray Island,” Anti-Human Trafficking Division’s commander Pol Maj General Kornchai Klayklueng said at a press conference yesterday.

He said in addition to helping these victims out, police also managed to arrest three suspects.

He identified the suspects as Jiw San Nyunt, Sow Mo, and Soe Win Aung Zo.

Police said the victims initially came to Thailand voluntarily as they were promised a paying job. However, after they arrived, they were locked inside such a shelter all the time except when they were ordered to work on a fishing trawler.

“Each ‘work trip’ on the fishing trawlers lasted about seven days. Some of them were also physically attacked while on the boat,” Kornchai said.

He added that the victims lamented that they had not received any wages yet because the three suspects said they had to repay money owed to Soe Win Aung Zo first.

“This suspect said he had paid for their travel expenses since the time they left Myanmar,” Kornchai said.

Police are checking to see if anyone else was involved in the crimes, which occurred in Sri Nakarin district in the southern province.

Two of the teens surrendered to police in Chumphon province yesterday and reportedly confessed to the crimes, which they reportedly recorded.

The other teens were arrested earlier. The also reportedly confessed and on Sunday told police where to find the body of the “friend” they murdered. It was in a shallow grave. Police alleged the suspects lured the two victims to a secluded forest area near Trang province to sort out an argument.

Police alleged that was where the murder, rape and assault took place, with the three-month pregnant girlfriend pushed off the side of an embankment after being raped. The woman survived the attack and got help from a nearby village.

The deceased man and his girlfriend were reported missing by their families last Thursday.

The woman was recovering in a hospital yesterday, while relatives called for police protection because of fears other accomplices may try to kill her to keep her quiet. They claimed five men came to the hospital looking for her.