Koh Tao murders : Two Britons dead in Thailand.

[news junkie]

Clueless Thai police admit they have 'no idea' who beach killers are

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ern-girls.html

[socal]

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/detail...te=06&section=

The relatives of one of the British tourists murdered in southern Thailand this week have requested respectful coverage from Thai media, a senior police officer said.

The family of Hannah Witheridge, 23, arrived in Thailand today to meet with police about their investigation into the gruesome murder of Ms. Witheridge and another British tourist, David Miller, 24, who were found bludgeoned to death in a rocky alcove on the resort island of Koh Tao on 15 September.

"They are not suspicious about the autopsy report," said Pol.Gen. Charampon Suramanee, assistant to the chief of Royal Thai Police. "But they asked the press to present news in a manner that is constructive and mindful of the feeling of the relatives of the deceased."

The comment came amid growing criticism of major Thai media agencies for taking what many are calling an unethical and insensitive approach to covering the murder story.

Many Thai-language and Thailand-based news sites drew condemnation early on for publishing the full names and photos of the deceased before it was confirmed that their families had been notified.

"The insensitivity of the Thai media and police continues unabated," wrote Thai blogger Saksith Saiyasombut on Asian Correspondent. "For next-of-kin to learn of the loss of a loved on a foreign news website is almost unthinkable."

In addition, mainstream Thai newspapers have focused on graphic details related to the murder, copied police notes without checking the facts, and published a number of unsubstantiated claims.

According to Bangkok-based BBC journalist Jonathan Head, Ms. Witheridge's family experienced the insensitivity of the Thai press corps first-hand when they arrived in Bangkok today.

"Disgraceful aggression by journalists trying to film family of Hannah Witheridge in Bangkok," Mr. Head wrote on his Twitter. "Poor people were hemmed in by cameras."

Pol.Gen. Charampon said Ms. Witheridge's family is not ready to give any comments to the press.

"They are still in a state of grief. They cannot yet cope with their loss," Pol.Gen. Charampon explained.

Meanwhile, police are struggling to make progress in the investigation after forensic tests revealed that DNA found on Ms. Witheridge's body did not match any of the possible suspects previously detained the police.

This is Thailand. They don't have to answer for this. They don't have to conform to other cultural norms. Thailand always publishes the names and pics of ppl. And they keep doing it despite the politically correct cries of western tourists. If you don't like this part of Thai culture , then don't come here. They aren't about to adjust for your politically correct feelings. Never have , never will. Nor should they

[socal]

Bit late aren't you new junkie? The ware brothers have already been allowed to leave. See BBC article disagreed with by Socal (no surprise).

Where does it say that the Ware chavs are allowed to leave ???
Edit: leave the island yeah no ****. But they aren't permitted to leave the country yet. Dummy..

[socal]

Where does it say that the Ware chavs are allowed to leave ???
Edit: leave the island yeah no ****. But they aren't permitted to leave the country yet. Dummy..

It says so in the article after groanin Ronins post. So that still makes Groanin a dummy

[Ronin]

Where does it say that the Ware chavs are allowed to leave ???
Edit: leave the island yeah no ****. But they aren't permitted to leave the country yet. Dummy..

Try reading a few articles you moronic twat! Had you bothered to read those articles properly they have left the country - whose the dummy now?

[Ronin]

It says so in the article after groanin Ronins post. So that still makes Groanin a dummy

Post 39

The Ware brothers, believed to be from Jersey, were stopped at Bangkok International Airport as they prepared to leave the country.

They didn't prepare to stay in it did they dummy!

[Guest]

The DNA tests would also indicate either Asian or Caucasian, no word on that.

[socal]

Try reading a few articles you moronic twat! Had you bothered to read those articles properly they have left the country - whose the dummy now?

I've been posting my bag off and reading over at TV . Dummy

[socal]

The DNA tests would also indicate either Asian or Caucasian, no word on that.

The DNA is a red herring at this point because DNA could be present from consentual sex ect.

And it wouldn't prove the race of the person. Been done to death on TD , TV

[Chitown]

Where does it say that the Ware chavs are allowed to leave ???
Edit: leave the island yeah no ****. But they aren't permitted to leave the country yet. Dummy..

They really have got a long stay scenario figured out now don't they! Just think about all the farangs hopping back and forth of the borders. If they could just get themselves pinned as murder suspects, they could get some extra time.

[Ronin]

I've been posting my bag off and reading over at TV . Dummy

post 39 post39 post 39 - which you haven't read.

[Ronin]

Latest from bbc;


Thailand's paradise island murder mystery

By Jonathan Head BBC News, South East Asia Correspondent It is as incongruous a scene as you are likely find for such a shockingly violent crime.
A small, sandy cove, hemmed all around by tall, rounded rocks, lapped by the turquoise seas that you get around Koh Tao.
Right behind it, climbing the hill, are the Ocean View Bungalows, typically unglamorous, functional accommodation that feature in abundance at the low end of resorts all over Thailand.
That is where Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were staying, and where they were presumably heading when they were murdered in the early hours of Monday morning.
Had this happened in one of Thailand's larger and more rowdy resorts, it would have been less shocking.
It is no secret that well-established locations like Pattaya, Phuket, Koh Samui and Koh Phangan have an ugly underbelly of crime, racketeering, drugs and prostitution, even though many tourists may remain blissfully unaware of these aspects.
But Koh Tao? Named after its turtle-like shape - Tao is Thai for turtle - or perhaps it was in the past a major breeding ground for turtles, the island was uninhabited after a penal colony was shut down there in 1947.
Koh Tao came late to the tourist boom that swept other Thai islands in the 1980s and 90s, and has remained far less developed, with a resident population of just a few thousand, and visitors who come for the excellent diving and slower pace of life.
Talking to local people, who are clearly appalled and distressed by the murders, the one thing they say repeatedly is that nothing like this has ever happened on Koh Tao before.
Westerners, who have settled on the island, talk of the small, tight-knit community, where everyone knows each other. Who could possibly have committed such a ghastly crime, which has cast a shadow over this idyllic tropical paradise?
Watching the Thai police struggle to answer this mystery, with the eyes of the world on them, has felt like being part of a sometimes farcical performance, in which we, the media, are the audience.
On arriving the day after the murders, the senior police officer on the island assured us the culprit could not have been a Thai person. No Thai could possibly commit such a crime, he said, forgetting the equally ghastly murder of Welsh tourist Katherine Horton in 2006, by, it turned out, two Thai fishermen.
On that occasion they were caught in an efficient police operation that lasted just one week.
Jealousy So having ruled out the Thais, the police focused their investigation in the large Burmese migrant worker population on Koh Tao.
They cited two CCTV images as crucial evidence.
One showed a couple they believed to be David Miller and Hannah Witheridge leaving a bar just before they were killed.
The other showed an Asian-looking man they thought might have been following the couple. But it turned out the CCTV image showed a completely different couple. And the seemingly random DNA samples taken from five Burmese men did not match any found on the victims' bodies.
Then another police chief said he believed the murders had been a crime of passion - hinting that jealousy might be the motive.
By then the police were directing their efforts to two of David Miller's friends who had been travelling with him in Thailand, Christopher and James Ware - but they too have now been cleared.
So the police are going back to the Burmese communities again, checking their documents, searching their homes.
And, four days on, a police officer has finally admitted that yes, perhaps the perpetrator might be Thai after all.
But as people were never stopped from leaving the island, despite claims to the contrary, the killer could by now be far away.
And while publicly residents express disbelief over this crime, privately they are less surprised.
"They've had this coming," one man told me. "They've let things get out of control."
Another local told me that the bar the two British victims had been at before they died was notorious for its hard-drinking scene, with groups of aggressive, intoxicated men creating an intimidating atmosphere.
Could it have been from there that they were followed, down on to the beach?
People talk about some powerful families on Koh Tao who are pushing unsustainable development, building bars and hotels with little regard for the environment or the laid-back vibe that has attracted so many westerners.
If this is the case, it simply reflects the pattern of development in almost every other beach resort in Thailand - loose law-enforcement, plenty of minor crime, and a reckless pursuit of profit by landowners to the point where they are slowly destroying the very beaches, coasts and seas that tourists enjoy.
It is now very hard to find unspoiled natural beauty along its 1,600 miles of coastline.
The British Embassy travel warnings for Thailand are a sobering reminder of the seamier side of its resorts.
It states: "Western tourists have been victims of vicious, unprovoked attacks by gangs in Koh Phangan. These attacks are particularly common around the time of the Full Moon parties and generally occur late at night near bars in Haad Rin on Koh Phangan.
"There have been sexual assaults against foreign men and women."
The deaths of David Miller and Hannah Witheridge now bring the total number of British citizens murdered in Thailand since 2009 to 13.
So is Thailand a safe place to visit? For the most part, yes.
But do not be fooled by the smiles and the glossy posters put out by the tourism authority. The reality behind them is an unequal, profit-driven economy, much of it illegal - and a police force which has shown time and again its incapacity for controlling crime.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29262496

[Thormaturge]

The Wrong Trousers

Investigation into the brutal murder of two English tourists on Koh Tao Island is progressing with the police said they have found new evidence from CCTV footage of an Asian man wearing the pants of one of the victims.



The new lead to the murder probe came as a team of investigators compared closed-circuit TV footage taken from the areas, and uncovered incriminating evidence on one particular individual.

Footage from the resort where Mr David Miller was residing showed him wearing a cream colored boxer shorts as he was walking toward the beach.

Comparing that footage to another at allocation nearby which captured the image of an Asian male shows the suspicious individual running pass the CCTV camera (from the direction of the crime scene) wearing the exact same shorts. A blue colored pants that was found by the body of Mr David is now believed to belong to the suspect.

This indicated that he mistakenly grabbed the pants of the victim to wear and left his own at the scene in a hurry as shown in the CCTV showing he ran pass hurriedly.

Police have yet to disclose the details of the case but thus far have put up a 100,000 Baht reward for any information on this suspected Asian male.

Meanwhile forensic police from Bangkok joined local forensic police in Surat Thani to collect DNA samples from more than 20 Myanmar workers both male and female rounded up from the vicinity of the crime scene and also their finger prints.

The DNA samples will then be compared to DNA samples found at the crime scene where M David Miller and Hannah Witheridge were brutally murdered on September 15.

Meanwhile, acting Royal Thai Police Commissioner, Pol. Gen Somyos Phumphanmuang will be travelling to Koh Tao Island tomorrow to personally oversee the investigations.

He said efforts are underway to garner the help of the FBI forensic team which specializes in DNA coding to help in the case.

The head of the Royal Thai Police Office of the Forensic Science Pol Lt-Gen Kamrop Panyakaew said that the database and equipment currently available in the country has no capability to differentiate between different races or ethnicity nor is it capable of identifying skin complexion or the age of DNA samples taken from an individual.

It is for this reason that DNA samples in the case of the murder of the two Britons will be sent to the FBI forensic investigators because they have the necessary experience and are better equipped and possess an extensive database in order to decode the samples.

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/new...s-murder-case/

[Mid]

Burmese Migrants Cleared of Tourist Killings in Thailand
SAW YAN NAING
Thursday, September 18, 2014


Pictures of killed British tourists David Miller and Hannah Witheridge and a message of support is displayed during special prayers at Koh Tao island on Sept. 18, 2014.
(Photo: Reuters / Sitthipong Charoenjai)

CHIANG MAI,

[Mid]

Thailand 'is safe', police chief insists during visit to scene of Britons' murders
Tom Phillips, Koh Tao, Thailand
20 Sep 2014

Thailand's police commissioner admits he still has no clear picture of what happened to two British tourists who disfigured bodies were found on Koh Tao island last week

Images showing David Miller near the Thai beach where he and Ms Witheridge were murdered just hours later
Photo: skynews

Thailand's most senior police official has insisted his country is safe for tourists despite the police's failure to catch or even identify the killers of British backpackers David Miller and Hannah Witheridge.

"It is safe. I'm sure it is safe," Police General Somyot Poompanmoung, the Royal Thai Police Commissioner, told The Telegraph during a brief visit to Koh Tao island where the Britons' bodies were found last Monday.

However, nearly one week after the tourists were killed the police chief admitted he still had no clear picture of what happened to them in the hours before their deaths. "We have to wait."

Asked if police were close to catch the killers he said: "I hope so."

Police now believe that a gang of at least three "attackers", two of whom are Asian, was responsible for the killings.

The badly disfigured bodies of Mr Miller, 24, and Ms Witheridge, 23, were found on Koh Tao's Sairee beach in the early hours of last Monday. The pair had met on the island and had been staying in the same hotel.


^{Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were killed on a beach in Thailand}

On Saturday police announced that DNA tests on two distinct semen samples collected from Ms Witheridge's body were both from Asian men.

Atichai Ti-amart, a tourist police chief, said investigators were also now searching for a "foreign" woman who was seen near the crime scene on Koh Tao island's Sairee beach in the early hours of Monday.

On Wednesday, police indicated an arrest was imminent and pointed the finger at a British friend of Mr Miller.

However, that man was cleared by DNA test and has now returned to the UK. With no clear suspects police have been taking apparently random DNA samples from mostly Burmese men who live and work around Sairee beach. Many expat residents have complained that Burmese men appear to have been targeted more than Thai citizens.

One of the few forensic clues police appear to have is a cigarette butt that was collected from the crime scene and found to contain two different sets of DNA.

The handling of the murders represents a major embarrasment to the Thai police chief, who only assumed his position last month.

Investigators have faced criticism for failing to properly secure the crime scene and surrounding area and apparently only conducting major forensic work more than 48 hours after the bodies were found.

Police General Somyot Poompanmoung said he would "try to solve the case as soon as possible".

Images showing Mr Miller walking near the Thai beach where he and Ms Witheridge were murdered just hours later emerged on Friday.

The CCTV images show the 24-year-old University of Leeds graduate walking north along the street that runs behind Sairee beach on Koh Tao island at 1.27am last Monday.

A second set of images, taken around 30 minutes later, at 1.56am, show Mr Miller returning down the same street in the company of a man and a woman whose identities are not known.

telegraph.co.uk