As international human rights agencies seek clarification on a horrific Thai murder investigation staff at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok rub their eyes.
Some 24 hours after Thai Police closed the file on the killer rapists of Koh Tao the internet is still alive with questions and expressions of disbelief over whether the ‘boys in brown’ as Thai police are often referred to by foreigners in Thailand, have actually got their men.
Flack Jackets and Helmets
It was an impressive show for people impressed by helicopters, link-chains of police volunteers running along the sands, directors with loudhailers, two diminutive Burmese in crash helmets and flak jackets bowing in supplication and asking of forgiveness.
But the foreign media, not used to the justice system of 'assumed guilt' noted these two young Burmese are guilty until found innocent – found it all a bit bizarre pantomime, this final denoument in the hunt for the killers of Britons Hannah Witheridge,23, and David Miller, 24.
The press conference was not so much a press conference – but an announcement. In effect police said 'We have the DNA matches (from sperm and a discarded LM Red cigarette. We have the CCTV footage. We have Hannah’s phone which was discarded.(more of this later) We have the guitar. We have the confessions. And we know one had died his hair black from blond'. (Police found blond(e) hairs in Hannah’s had)
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
 |
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
 |
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
 |
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
 |
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
 |
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
Flack Jackets and Helmets
It was an impressive show for people impressed by helicopters, link-chains of police volunteers running along the sands, directors with loudhailers, two diminutive Burmese in crash helmets and flak jackets bowing in supplication and asking of forgiveness.
But the foreign media, not used to the justice system of 'assumed guilt' noted these two young Burmese are guilty until found innocent – found it all a bit bizarre pantomime, this final denoument in the hunt for the killers of Britons Hannah Witheridge,23, and David Miller, 24.
The press conference was not so much a press conference – but an announcement. In effect police said 'We have the DNA matches (from sperm and a discarded LM Red cigarette. We have the CCTV footage. We have Hannah’s phone which was discarded.(more of this later) We have the guitar. We have the confessions. And we know one had died his hair black from blond'. (Police found blond(e) hairs in Hannah’s had)
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
It was an impressive show for people impressed by helicopters, link-chains of police volunteers running along the sands, directors with loudhailers, two diminutive Burmese in crash helmets and flak jackets bowing in supplication and asking of forgiveness.
But the foreign media, not used to the justice system of 'assumed guilt' noted these two young Burmese are guilty until found innocent – found it all a bit bizarre pantomime, this final denoument in the hunt for the killers of Britons Hannah Witheridge,23, and David Miller, 24.
The press conference was not so much a press conference – but an announcement. In effect police said 'We have the DNA matches (from sperm and a discarded LM Red cigarette. We have the CCTV footage. We have Hannah’s phone which was discarded.(more of this later) We have the guitar. We have the confessions. And we know one had died his hair black from blond'. (Police found blond(e) hairs in Hannah’s had)
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
But the foreign media, not used to the justice system of 'assumed guilt' noted these two young Burmese are guilty until found innocent – found it all a bit bizarre pantomime, this final denoument in the hunt for the killers of Britons Hannah Witheridge,23, and David Miller, 24.
The press conference was not so much a press conference – but an announcement. In effect police said 'We have the DNA matches (from sperm and a discarded LM Red cigarette. We have the CCTV footage. We have Hannah’s phone which was discarded.(more of this later) We have the guitar. We have the confessions. And we know one had died his hair black from blond'. (Police found blond(e) hairs in Hannah’s had)
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
The press conference was not so much a press conference – but an announcement. In effect police said 'We have the DNA matches (from sperm and a discarded LM Red cigarette. We have the CCTV footage. We have Hannah’s phone which was discarded.(more of this later) We have the guitar. We have the confessions. And we know one had died his hair black from blond'. (Police found blond(e) hairs in Hannah’s had)
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
The press conference was not so much a press conference – but an announcement. In effect police said 'We have the DNA matches (from sperm and a discarded LM Red cigarette. We have the CCTV footage. We have Hannah’s phone which was discarded.(more of this later) We have the guitar. We have the confessions. And we know one had died his hair black from blond'. (Police found blond(e) hairs in Hannah’s had)
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
The press conference was not so much a press conference – but an announcement. In effect police said 'We have the DNA matches (from sperm and a discarded LM Red cigarette. We have the CCTV footage. We have Hannah’s phone which was discarded.(more of this later) We have the guitar. We have the confessions. And we know one had died his hair black from blond'. (Police found blond(e) hairs in Hannah’s had)
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
The press conference was not so much a press conference – but an announcement. In effect police said 'We have the DNA matches (from sperm and a discarded LM Red cigarette. We have the CCTV footage. We have Hannah’s phone which was discarded.(more of this later) We have the guitar. We have the confessions. And we know one had died his hair black from blond'. (Police found blond(e) hairs in Hannah’s had)
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
The motive, said police, was that the young Burmese men Win and Saw, who had been smoking on the beach and playing guitar, saw David Hannah kissing (a previous version was making love) and were driven by uncontrollable desire. As they were new to Thailand having been in the country only two weeks they were not used to such scenes of lasciviousness. Its reported elsewhere that they had been in Thailand for nine months.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
|
| Killer rapists? |
This has been hard to swallow by foreigner who back home might see more erotic scenes in a TV advert in children’s hour than on a beach in the dark in Thailand. And why would two quite small young men, take on two people of considerably bigger build. These guys did not look like crackheads. They have been likened cherubs in sea of Shreks.
Police duly produced a long handled dustpan (in place of the garden hoe) a guitar, and a Sky News reporter to play Hannah who was filmed walking along the beach arm round the waist of another foreigner and his reaching around hers. At the same time out came a guitar and journalists wondered in disbelieve if expected one of the ‘perps’ would be asked to strum along with the show... and then at police direction.....he did.
Bizarre it was. Everything was controlled by loudhailers as Win was pushed down by his head to kneel between a Thai officer legs spread, as Saw simulated beating him with a dustpan.
Everything ended with a round of applause from the locals, all of whom must have had this ‘we wish this thing would go away feeling’, and the setting off of Chinese fire crackers by the tour and guest house operators.
The Police Generals endorsed their satisfaction at the conclusion of the enquiry and wai-ed the foreign press perhaps wishing they were not there and would go soon. There were no questions.
But as Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha was congratulating on a job well done a tidal wave of disbelief was flooding the internet.
In short a simple internet post “What a load of f…g b@lls” perhaps best encapsulates the mood as thousands of amateur sleuths turned the police investigation into what they considered a fiasco.
Posts of anger and disbelief choked foreign internet forums in Thailand, newspaper comment sections of British newspapers and what’s more the foreigners were joined by off-island Thais in their thousands echoing similar sentiments and of course Burmese, from all parts of the globe.
No sooner had the loudhailers been switched off on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, than a group of Burmese announced that three friends of the accused had been beaten and had scalding water poured over them several days before…on September 27th when the original three accused, with whom they were playing takraw fled into the jungle.
|
| Football team |
The three footballers had been captured on CCTV following Hannah and her group, but maybe not deliberately, on the night of the murder.
By September 27th a whole array of suspects had been paraded in the press with police comments attached to their particular roles.
The initial island story of course was that a crazed gay foreigner – Miller’s boyfriend – had killed the couple in a frenzy of jealousy. This was the first story told to journalists by backpackers and locals alike.
Then the hunt was on for the obvious suspects, in the eyes of the locals, who were the Burmese migrant labourers a couple of thousand of whom were on the island many without documentation, andwho appeared also to be a regular source of income to the local police – Anybody without papers is a source of income it seems on Koh Tao.
Then came the Ware brothers, Christopher and James, from Jersey, who were on holiday with David Miller. It seems an all-points bulletin was put out for them and they were stopped at Suvarnabhumi airport from boarding their flight and asked to undergo DNA tests.
It appears that police did not DNA test them earlier out of krengjai (respect) or perhaps because they knew their rights.
Then came a Thai speed boat boatman who dabbled in drugs and was found hanging out in a cave in Koh Samui.
|
No sooner was he off the hook (for the murders not drugs) than in the frame was Mon the manager of the AC bar who had followed or chased a hapless Scottish busker Sean McAnna from the AC bar after he claimed Mon and another figure (who turned out to be a plain clothed policeman) accused him of being the murderer and told him they were going to ‘hang him in the hills’.
This came as Fleet Street journalists, encamped in the island’s Montra Hotel, had found the police did not have much to say to them, nor did the locals, nor the local foreigners, and so were desperate for someone to talk to.
A real live drama was going on in front of their eyes. A terrified McAnna had snatched a photo of Mon and the policeman from a position cowered behind the counter of a 7/11. ‘The Mafia are trying to kill me’ he Facebooked with the picture.
Mon was of course one of the island’s wheeler dealers and laughed off the remarks of the crazy foreigner and told stories of ‘farang sai mai dee’, bad hearted foreigners, who came to Koh Tao and disturbed their modest was of life. Mon had the look of someone nothing could surprise and who had lived life to the full.
But soon his name was linked to his neephew of the Head Man (puyai baan) a serious mover and shaker on Koh Tao. The son had apparently fled the island to Bangkok it was claimed.
General Panya Mamen, Head of Region 8 of the Royal Thai Police, said the son and brother of the head man were under investigation. This was followed the following day by a denial and followed again by an indignant headman holding a press conference to express his hurt feelings – at which he offered 1 million baht (£20,000) to anyone who could prove that any of his relatives were involved.
The foreign media looked on in boredom. All they could see was a man putting his foot down and underlining his position.
|
| Add caption |
Thai police were at the but of a foreign hack's joke. "I was told Thai police could set someone up for murder for a lot less'.
This was all rounded off by the ‘missing’ son facing the press in Bangkok stating he had been at University all along and had CCTV footage and professors who could vouch for him.
**
The headman’s anger and that of Mon, his younger brother, was now directed at crazy McAnna and they suddenly remembered that McAnna had been witnessed wiping blood off his face in the Lotus bar – and sure enough as he left the island his guitar appeared to be stained with dried blood.
This story did not however appear to stick very well and so on the story went to the roundup of Burmese and each time a series of props which included mobile phones appeared, and a bloodstained pair of trousers (which turned out not to be bloodstained)Last week police were predicting from Monday that with 48 hours they would have the killer. Then a local taxi driver fled to the bosom of another island leader claiming he had been beaten by police and offered 700,000 baht (about £13,000) to give false testimony against someone else.
The leader then issued a statement to the effect that this was a scandalous state of affairs (but put much more mildly Thai style) and that the police should not try and find scapegoats.
Some people were of course misinterpreting that as meaning: ‘Leave our people alone and find a scapegoat’.
Soon some people were complaining that they already had. One of the three Burmese arrested was captured at the pier in Surat Thani and the two others were brought in to Sairee Beach. By Thursday night two had ‘confessed’ and the third had merely admitted to playing his guitar and having a beer and smoke on the beach).
In their excitement before DNA samples had been tested the police announced they had their man. Or so it appeared. And sure enough the DNA was confirmed the following day at 8am – the day of the Big Show.
The bloodstained trousers, a prop which has appeared several times, which turned out to belong to Christopher Ware and were found in Miller bag, were of course not blood-stained and totally irrelevant.A series of figures caught on CCTV including allegedly Hannah and David were irrelevant and of course not Hannah and David, nor did they ever look like Hannah and David.
CCTV of Win on the night of the murders, who was supposed to be blond at the time, showed him to be black haired at the time..and now there is a controversy about Hannah’s mobile phone.
This phone, or the phone of one of the victims, depending on which comment you take into account, was allegedly thrown into the jungle near the home of the accused – as it did not work. Police then found it. But a poster on the forum ThaiVisa.com seemed to put the lie to the story that the Burmese had Hannah’s phone and threw it away nearby – because it did not work.
The Burmese could not have had Hannah’s phone, she said, because on the night in question Hannah had given it to a friend to put in her handbag. The day of the murders the Hannah’s phone was handed to police! And The CSI LA Facebook page took up the case.
Abigail 1989 wrote last night:
“I just want to clear up what I posted yesterday. I originally said that there was no way that the phone could have been at the suspects’ house because it was at the scene. I jumped to conclusions with that statement. At that point my friend had just told me that she had the phone the next day and I didn't want to ask her too many questions and upset her.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
|
| From Phuketwan - but they now say the phone was Miller's |
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
“I've since spoken to her properly and that's when I found out that the phone wasn't at the scene but was in the friend’s handbag. They gave it to the police the following morning along with the passcode. It's perfectly normal to know friends passcodes, especially if you're travelling together and using phones to take pictures etc.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.
“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
“You don't need to believe me, I'm just saying what I know. I am also aware that perhaps the police are referring to the other victim’s phone, in which case my information is useless anyway.“I don't really want to comment publicly on whether they were romantically involved or not”.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
But while all this may seem relevant to a foreign audience of amateur sleuths what police say at press conferences is meaningless not only in the Thai Courts but in general way of things. Caution and measured statements can give way to storytelling.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
Currently there are foreign agencies and international agencies who want to have a closer look at these two defendants if only to allay fears that a terrible injustice has taken place.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
And the Burmese Embassy is slowly gearing into action:
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
According to Eleven Media:
"The Labour Ministry has been investigating the incident and conveyed a message to the embassy to provide help for the three men.
“We’re now making an investigation into the incident. We asked local residents whether the accusations are correct or not. Some said the Myanmar workers weren’t involved in the murders,” Thein Naing said.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
COMMENT
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
The fallout from directly combatting the machinery involved in this prosecution may be great.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
In past cases Thai formula has always been to deny, deny, and deny in each and every murder of a foreigner. In almost every case blame has been first attributed to a foreigner, either Bumese or western. People remember the cases as much for the investigation as for the horror of the murders.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
And of two of the five high profile murder cases known and covered by the author of this – Kirsty Jones, Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd, Leo del Pinto, and the Koh Tao case, three (Arscott, Lloyd and del Pinto) were murdered by Thai police.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
UK: Joanne Masheder, from Cheshire, 23, 1996: murdered by a monk in temple grounds in Kanchanaburi. For a while she was just a missing person. During that period a claim was made that her disappearance was just and insurance fraud.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
UK: Kirsty Jones, 23, from Devon, 2000: murdered and raped in the Aree Guest house Chiang Mai. Burmese guide tortured. Several foreigners accused. Killer never found. Complete DNA profile done in UK was never matched.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in Kanchanaburi
UK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
UK: Vanessa Arscott, 23, and Adam Lloyd, 24, 2004: murdered by a policeman in KanchanaburiUK: Katherine Horton, from Cardiff, 23, 2006: murdered and raped on Lamai Beach, Koh Samui. Two Thai fishermen eventually charged. Stories on Koh Samui related this week claim these men were scapegoats.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.
Canada: Leo Delpinto, 24, from Calgary: Shot dead by Thai policeman. Carly Reisig shot and injured. Local witnesses instructed to say the policeman was acting in self defence. Policeman was given bail, during which time he clubbed his 18-year-old bride to death after two weeks of marriage.http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2014/10/koh-tao-methodical-investigation-or.html
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