Thread: Two Tourists Brutally Murdered on Koh Tao, One Raped: Police Spark Thailand Manhunt

HUNDREDS of protesters are expected to gather outside Downing Street on Friday in an attempt to force the UK government to set up an independent investigation into the murders of a Jerseyman and a woman from the UK on the Thai island of Koh Tao last month.
Hundreds to march on Downing Street over Thai murders « Jersey Evening Post

What's happened to that pic of mon sod with the hose pipe between his legs being used as a phallic symbol on a boat. It's gone missing of the web?

ItKeepsMeAwake
October 15, 2014 7:12 am
Don't want to sound unsympathetic, but why the UK government? Why not the Jersey police?

This is the best thing I have seen in relation to this.

Bloody right! Get the boys from Jersey in the mix. Someone use to dealing with island life and politics. Someone not corrupt, and used to fighting that to get the result.

Only one man for the job

A neighbor of mine caught me in the street this morning and asked if I had heard about this case. She said there was a story circulating in Thai on the web having the attack occur much like YOrlov described above. She mentioned a Facebook page, Safehouse BP as a place to view this info. I don't read Thai and she was on her way to work so didn't get to see it. Someone who reads Thai may want to take a look.

^ Same person's website was already banned today.

Apparently named names.

Originally Posted by snakeeyes

[CENTER]

Well yes, after photoshopping his face on to the cctv image it does look like him.
Fucking amazing similarity.

This is going to end badly for the General if he doesn't get a grip soon. He has no legitimacy, has blundered along a path that belongs to a bygone age and has stupidly identified himself with a hamfisted attempt to cover up the truth.

The internet chatter is becoming a lightning rod for criticism of his junta.

Will he change tack or will he simply act out the usual farce as if Thailand is somehow disconnected from the world and expect everyone to believe the drivel they choose to spout?

Poor man. He just can't understand how two people of no importance in terms of Thai society can be causing him such a headache.

Democracy, truth, justice, fair play, decency and the rule of law are all abstract terms to these people.

drummond's new post is very interesting.

KOH TAO MURDERS - HE WENT THIS WAY - NO HE WENT THAT AWAY
Wednesday, October 15, 2014 1
CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE KOH TAO MURDER TRIAL? HERE'S A ROUGH GUIDE


No it was this way! No it was that a'way!
A defendant writes

Thailand's Justice system will come under considerable scrutiny during the trial of the two young Burmese men if foreign observers are allowed and foreign police are also able to come and 'liaise'. But just how far the international spirit of c-operation will extend may be rather limited.

The main request for the Thai police will of course be to politely ask whether the two men can be separately and independently DNA tested so an absolutely new full profile can be done so this can be then matched to the sperm and other evidence Thai police have. It seems highly unlikely at this stage that this will be allowed. Its a sovereignty issue.

There already has been some confusion in the media as to what Thai Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-Ocha will allow. In some media he denies the Charge d'Affairs was summonsed to the Foreign Office. In some media he appears to state that both the Burmese and British envoys are satisfied with the status quo. But he has apparently promised full assistance to international observers.

As the trial got under way yesterday there was also some confusion as to the reporting of trials in Thailand. The Bangkok Post for instance reported what the witnesses said. The Nation did not. But we can assume a sort of news blackout may be enforced.

British law for instance dictates that trial reports must be contemporaneous. That means reporters must send their copy in time for the next available edition of their newspaper, website, or television station.



Thailand is not so media friendly. Often judges will forbid reporters taking any notes at all (This happened in a recent case involving an American in Pattaya on extortion charges). Reporters will not be barred from the courts, but they are barred from publishing until the end of the trial.

This makes life a trifling difficult. As in real life Thailand murder trials, or any trials for that matter, can take over six years, while the record is some 20 plus years, with some defendants and several witnesses dying during the process.

Katherine Horton

This happens because trials can sit one day a month, one day every three months, and if say a witness does not turn up, or a lawyer, as frequently happens, one can lose half a year just like that.

Ok, there's no need for journalists to be actually there one might think. Records are kept of all court cases. Just look up the records. Well, yes, that it true, But the records are only available to the defendants or the plaintiffs, or their lawyers. The judge may however issue his judgment.

This makes it very difficult for journalists who cannot report trials day by day, cannot take notes, and who will not bother to turn up for an out of town trial if it is going to be delayed anyway. What is written it totally controlled. And how can they recall something somebody said six years ago without a note?


Kamnan Poh - sentenced but did not do time

Truck loads of prisoners every day are taken to the Thai courts. Its an endless debilitating process for them in the cells down below wondering if anything is going to happen. So why should journalists turn up.

This is why in Thailand we see endless public arrests, but never hear the result. The only results possible are or course punishment, acquittal or pay off. In the case of the Burmese there are only two possible results, punishment or acquittal. Acquittal seems unlikely unless there are major international issues.

As for journalists, well lets suppose they can get the court records from the lawyers of either side.
What will they contain?


Killer cop - Wisetsingh before running over Vanessa Arscott and then
shooting her three times in the forehead, mouth and next
Well what they will NOT contain is a verbatim transcript of proceedings. There will be no verbatim transcripts of anything. No recordings. Zilch. Well there will be print out of a recording of witness testimony from a judge's dictaphone machine. The judge listens to the testimony and summarises what is said. He will ignore things which he or she sees as irrelevant. This can be confusing because any given case can have several judges, sitting, one after the other - and all they have to go on are the previous judges notes.

They have to relearn the case from the beginning. This is where a lot of things go wrong.

Now in the case of Katherine Horton, 23, who was murdered and raped in Koh Samui in 2006 the case was done and dusted very quickly. The two defendant were tried and sentenced to death within a few weeks. The death sentence was later commuted. This was solely because the case was high profile and 'tourist related'. The talk in Koh Samui today is even that those two were scapegoats.


In the case of the culprits being Thai police - well that process can take a little longer, as in the case of Police Sergeant Somchai Wisetsingh, who murdered Britons Vanessa Arscott and Adam Lloyd in Kanchanaburi, and who got bail immediately and was free for about nine months, and a lot longer in the case of police sergeant Uthai Dechawiwat who murdered Canadian Leo del Pinto in 2008 in Pai and was not sentenced until 2013 - during which time he managed to beat his 18 year old wife to death.

But the easiest way to be exempt from punishment for murder it seems is to be a 'head man' like Somchai Khunpleum, the Godfather of Thailand's Eastern Seaboard. He was sentenced to 25 years in jail ten years ago - and does not really know what the inside of a prison looks like.


Killer cop Uthai - 5 years to sentence
Thai Criminal Law is in fact based on British law which was studied by Prince Rapee and imported so to speak.

There the similarity ends. There are no jury trials. They do not work in Asia where jurors perhaps are even easier to nobble than judges. There are no brilliant grillings of witnesses by the likes of George Carmen QC.

And if several languages are used during the trial, well then again it becomes a case of ' Send reinforcements we are going to advance' becoming 'Send three and four pence we are going to a dance.'

In this Comedy of Errors which even the judiciary knows is in drastic need of reform two young men's lives hang in the balance.

It would be gross to think they were being put on trial for to save tourism


KOH TAO MURDERS - HE WENT THIS WAY - NO HE WENT THAT AWAY - Andrew Drummond

Originally Posted by misskit

^ Same person's website was already banned today.

Apparently named names.

Found this, apparently a red shirt enclave but still active


https://www.facebook.com/groups/SafeHouseBpGroup/

Originally Posted by Necron99

Originally Posted by snakeeyes

[center]

Well yes, after photoshopping his face on to the cctv image it does look like him.
Fucking amazing similarity.

[Chuckles]Funny... But the shape of the face, the hairstyle, the gait and the left arm positioning, and the faked CCTV and the Sunday's alibi actually being in Pattya and the ... ...

What is needed is witnesses to say the boy was on the island and the chance of that is slim to none. Or Bangkok Air passenger lists, but maybe altered. CCTV vid, too, but as it is property of the owner, intimidation factors in.

I keep thinking about the 1 million " reward" to implicate Som Nod, or any other members of the family, will daddy actually hand that over to CSI LA 90210?

This thread will be closed down soon.

Best download what you can.

The sound you hear is the rattle of the drawbridge chains tightening.

Excellent analysis by Sondhi Limthongkul is a Thai media mogul owner of ASTV and leader of the right-wing People's Alliance for Democracy. He said local police are afraid to touch the local mafia. The island is so small everyone knows who did it. The local police tried to help the wrong doers. It was wrong from the start. Mr. Sondhi believe the Burmese are scapegoats.

Hundreds to march on Downing Street over Thai murders

HUNDREDS of protesters are expected to gather outside Downing Street on Friday in an attempt to force the UK government to set up an independent investigation into the murders of a Jerseyman and a woman from the UK on the Thai island of Koh Tao last month.

A petition signed by more than 65,000 people will be handed to UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s office outlining fears that the Thai authority’s investigation into the murders of Islander David Miller (24) and 23-year-old Hannah Witheridge was ‘flawed’.
Hundreds to march on Downing Street over Thai murders « Jersey Evening Post

^ Petition is at 80k + now!
If it hit's 100K it will trigger a debate in Westminster.

^^^

Originally Posted by Chittychangchang

If it hit's 100K it will trigger a debate in Westminster.

It is true that 100k signatures on a petition means a debate must be held in Parliament, but MP's don't actually have to attend..

Originally Posted by Neo

Originally Posted by Chittychangchang

If it hit's 100K it will trigger a debate in Westminster.

It is true that 100k signatures on a petition means a debate must be held in Parliament, but MP's don't actually have to attend..

I seem to think that it is 10k but it needs to be on the No 10 petition website with proof that the people on their are resident in the UK and entitled to vote. Otherwise parliament could be full of debates triggered by call centers in China and India taking the piss.

Burmese migrant worker Maung Maung – held in Thai police custody for two weeks as a potential witness in the Koh Tao murder case – has been released and says he wants to return home to Burma immediately.

Meanwhile, a member of the Burmese embassy delegation at Tuesday’s court hearing on the case said he heard nothing in the witnesses’ testimonies that would implicate suspects Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin in the 15 September murder of British tourists Hannah Witheridge and David Miller.

Speaking to DVB by telephone on Wednesday afternoon on condition that his location was not disclosed, Maung Maung said he was released on Tuesday evening, following his testimony in a Koh Samui courthouse that day.

“I testified exactly what I knew to be true – that I drank beer with my friends Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin, that I left them on the beach to go to my girlfriend’s room, and that I found them sleeping in our room when I came home around 5 in the morning.

“I testified neither in favour of my friends nor the Thai police because I believe everyone should be treated equally under the law,” he said. “I have told the truth since the beginning. I would not say my friends committed that crime even if it were to cause harm to me.”

He said that while in police detention he was physically held down and intimidated during interrogation.

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Maung Maung was identified as the third Burmese man, alongside suspects Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin, present at Sairee Beach on the night of the murder. He shared a room with the pair, as well as two other Burmese men, Nyi Nyi Aung and Aung Zaw Lin.

Maung Maung, Nyi Nyi Aung and Aung Zaw Lin were called as prosecution witnesses on Tuesday and gave testimonies in a preliminary hearing at a courthouse in Koh Samui, southern Thailand.

Moe Wai, a member of the Burmese embassy delegation that attended the hearing, said Nyi Nyi Aung and Aung Zaw Lin were mostly quizzed about a mobile phone belonging to one of the victims. The pair testified that they were given the phone by the suspects and decided to smash it with a hammer after being unable to use it, he said.

Moe Wai said the questioning of Maung Maung lasted from morning until around 3pm. He was shown screen grabs from CCTV footage that purported to show him, Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin riding together on a motorbike and buying alcohol at a shop on the night of 14 September.

Moe Wai said that nothing that the three witnesses said in their individual testimonies amounted to evidence that supports the allegations against Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin.

“None of the witness testimonies included anything that could implicate [Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin] as the murderers. It’s starting to appear that it wasn’t them,” said Moe Wai.

“The line of questioning from both sides was fair – we can say we are satisfied with the court hearing to a certain level.”

He said the judge told the court that under normal circumstances a murder and rape case such as this would take about six months, but due to the victims being foreigners and pressure from the Thai government, the court would try to conclude the trial within about three months.

Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin Oo were also present at the hearing on Tuesday when they were asked only to confirm their defence lawyers.

The hearing was attended by migrant rights groups and Thai lawyers.

The police investigation into the 15 September murders of Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, on Koh Tao has stirred much controversy and criticism in Thailand, Burma and the UK.

Earlier this week, the British minister for Southeast Asia, Hugo Swire, summoned the Thai Chargé d’Affaires Nadthavathna Krishnamra in London, where he reportedly stressed that “there was a real concern in the UK about how the investigation has been handled by the Thai authorities”, and “that it was crucial for the investigation to be conducted in a fair and transparent way”.

Koh Tao murders: ?Third man? released, returning to Burma | DVB Multimedia Group

PM warns over Koh Tao meddling | Bangkok Post: news