Koh Tao murders : Two Britons dead in Thailand.

[Ronin]

Thailand Lifer Join DateApr 2014Posts181
Lastest News on Britons Murdered in Thailand.

13:00 BST UK


2 October 2014 Last updated at 13:00 Burmese man 'admits killing British students in Thailand'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29461757

[Mid]

Thai police: 2 men admit killing British tourists
Oct 2

BANGKOK (AP) -- Thai police say two workers from Myanmar have confessed to killing two British tourists whose nearly naked, battered bodies were found last month on a beach on the scenic island of Koh Tao.

Police Maj. Gen. Kiattipong Khawsamang said Thursday that two out of three Myanmar workers questioned by police admitted murdering Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24.

He said the other worker denied involvement.

Police Lt. Gen. Jaktip Chaijinda said police will wait for the results of DNA tests from the suspects to see if they match samples taken from Witheridge's body.

Thai police have searched for clues and collected DNA samples from more than 100 men on the island in the Gulf of Thailand since the bodies were discovered Sept. 15.

ap.org

[Panama Hat]

First one man, then two just for good measure . . .

Akin to Ripley's

[Mid]

I ain't buying it .

[Mid]

Police Claim Burmese Migrant Confesses To Koh Tao Murders
02 October 2014



BANGKOK

[Mid]

POLICE news from Thailand. The Sun reports:

A THAILAND bar worker has confessed to murdering Brit backpackers Hannah Witheridge and David Miller. The 21-year-old Burmese man, known only as Win, worked at a bar on Koh Tao where the pair were brutally killed on September 15.

Win is said to have been taken into custody for tests with two other Burmese workers called Maw, 23, and Saw, 21.

Win, Maw and Saw.

The Bangkok Posthttp://www.anorak.co.uk/407788/news/...arrested.html/

[Ampersand]

Hmmmm, it stinks, and the only way this confession is accepted, by any other than the BIB, is when the DNA evidence is confirmed by a independent lab. The whole investigation is far too contaminated by incompetence and switching between messages/results from day 1.

If this turns out to be another 'set up' by the BIB it could/should backfire big time for the tourist industry and Thailand in general.

[troy]

I ain't buying it .

Nor are 80% of Thais on an FB poll according to the wife.

Investigation has been tainted ever since BIB stated it couldn't have been a Thai.

[Delayed]

I wonder how many other people touched the cigarette before it was tested? It is sad that the instinctive reaction is not to trust the bib.

I am sure the scene re-creation will prove without doubt that these "foreign scum" did this. DNA is strong evidence, will be a hard case to disprove.

[Texpat]

I can't help but thinking that if this couple that was killed were Japanese, or Korean, these hundreds of pages on various forums would be more like six or seven. It is the singularly vociferous nationals of a certain sort that howl like jackals when they feel slighted.

[MrBlobby]

Do hope the family and friends of the murdered Britons are as concerned about "justice for the suspects", as they are about "justice for their loved ones".

It may be the only representation the suspects get.

[Mid]

Koh Tao murder suspects confess, DNA matches, police chief says
3/10/2014

Police said Friday that two Myanmar nationals had confessed to killing a pair of British tourists on Koh Tao last month and that their DNA matched samples taken from one victim.



"Two Myanmar suspects have confessed to killing the pair," Thai national police chief Somyot Pumpunmuang told AFP. "DNA test results (from the two men) confirmed that the same DNA was found in the body of the (female) victim."

Thai media, the German Press Agency and the British Broadcasting Corp also reported the DNA matches. However, Pol Gen Somyot and other police officials had not announced it yet, waiting for a scheduled press conference.

The two men were among three nationals from Myanmar held since Thursday on suspicion of murdering David Miller, 24, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, on the Surat Thai province island Sept 15. Deputy national police chief Chakthip Chaichinda said Police inspected video footage from security cameras on Koh Tao and became suspicious of their activities.

"The third suspect said he left the crime scene before (the) murder took place," Pol Gen Somyot told AFP.

In a later interview with public broadcaster Thai PBS, Pol Gen Somyot said that police had gathered additional CCTV and eyewitness evidence to support the case.

Pol Maj Gen Kiattpoing Khawsamang, former Surat Thani police chief, who is one of the investigators, told AFP that the two men had also admitted to raping Witheridge.

"Both raped the female victim," he said, adding the British pair were killed with a wooden stick and a garden hoe, which was found bloodied at the scene.

Police were due to travel to Koh Tao with the two Myanmar nationals to recreate the crime scene as they waited for a local court to issue a warrant to charge the men.

One of the three suspects identified only as Cho (and originally transliterated as "Soe"), who was about 25 to 27 years old, was detained at the main wharf of Nakhon Surat Thani Municipality at 6am Thursday after he left Koh Tao on a ferry at 9pm on Wednesday.

The man was taken to Provincial Police Region 8 investigation centre where he was questioned for five hours. Members of the press were barred from approaching the investigation centre and prohibited from taking pictures.

Thai authorities frequently accuse migrants from Myanmar and Cambodia of committing crimes in the kingdom, where they make up a vast, poorly paid and low-status workforce.

But police have insisted they would not scapegoat anyone for the crime, despite coming under immense pressure to get a result as anger built over an apparently sluggish investigation in the days after the bodies were found.

Police officers refused to talk to reporters until Pol Lt Gen Decha Butrnamphech, commissioner of the Provincial Police Region 8, emerged from the investigation centre at 3pm to say the case was expected to be solved soon. "I'm very satisfied with the investigation," he said.


Cho: Admits he is the man caught by a security camera, denies he killed.

Police have since DNA tested scores of people in and around Koh Tao and questioned hundreds of people - including friends of Miller - and Friday's apparent breakthrough will ease the scrutiny on the Thai force.

A source said Cho admitted he been captured on a surveillance camera but insisted he had nothing to do with the murder of the two Britons. Cho was being detained by the police Thursday on illegal entry charges.

Another informed source, meanwhile, said police on Sept 30 began paying special attention to 10 people of interest after discovering one of them was captured on a security camera at a convenience store on Sairee beach while buying a packet of L&M cigarettes.

The man was recorded on the camera at 11.12pm on Sept 14.

DNA samples taken from cigarette butts of the same L&M brand, which were found near the crime scene, matched those extracted from semen retrieved from Witheridge, the same source said.

The police previously learned from a number of staff at a resort near the crime scene that a group of three Myanmar nationals, who were believed to be close friends, liked to hang around together playing guitars on the beach, the source said.

Two of the three Myanmar men were identified as employees of a restaurant near the crime scene while one was confirmed to be Cho who hurriedly left Koh Tao shortly after he was released after being questioned earlier by police, the source said.

At 9pm on Wednesday, a police investigation team, detained the other two Myanmar nationals and took them to a safe house on the island.

Critics - especially among the British media - have accused Thai authorities of bungling the investigation in the near three weeks since the murders by chasing the wrong leads and failing to lock down the island in the hours following the killings.

With the peak tourist season fast approaching, Thai authorities are desperate to draw a line under the incident.

"I think the tourist confidence will improve," Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, minister of Tourism and Sports told AFP, hours after the purported confessions. "The issue of tourist security is very important to us."

Ms Kobkarn made headlines of her own Tuesday when she suggested giving holidaymakers wristbands - which might eventually include GPS tracking - to keep them safe, setting off incredulous guffaws and ridicule worldwide

bangkokpost.com

[serrollt]

The brutality of the crime indicated from the outset that no Thai could have been involved... if only the foreign media would have let the police do their work instead of criticising and interfering.

I suggest as well as tourists, also all foreign workers be forced to wear GPS chips to drastically reduce crime in Thailand.

[thegent]

Well, it seems the Establishment have now finally polished off the script, selected the cast and the production is running. The appointmemt of the new Director has galvanised the crew and having opened the scene with an overture giving us a synopsis of the plot we are well along the way with the first of the location shots.

interestingly, our own chief critic and unbiased observer, the inestimable Mark " Superman " Kent, the Doyenne of British plenipotentiaries and currently Grande Dame of the British embassy production in Bangkok, has already given a thumbs up and is thrilled at the choice of Director who may even offer her a part equal to the one taken by her predecessor Lady Quinton Quayle.

The plot so far is somewhat simplistic but follows the tradition and we may yet see a few twists and turns although one can never rule out the possibility of a Deus ex Machina to conclude the show.

Lay on Macduff!

[Ronin]

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3 October 2014 Last updated at 10:43 Burmese men accused of killing Britons paraded by Thai police



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29470965