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

I'd suggest the Thai police/judiciary, cease issuing statements, every move they make now will be scrutinized and dissected.

"The trial of this case was open to the public..."

I thought it was closed to the public, and that Thai reporters and translators for foreign media outlets were all warned not to enter by gangsters outside.

Originally Posted by taxexile

true, they are force made up mostly of unprincipled gangsters and thugs used to dealing with thais and getting their own way whatever the cost, but this is an international story and their actions and statements regarding this case will be analysed, criticised and publicised by foreign media.

i think they will have to rein in their pride and pomposity over this facebook posting and i suspect they will publish a simple denial of her accusations rather than embarrass themselves with a court case that in any case could realistically never take place.

but this is the thai police we are dealing with, and to satisfy the thai audience i suppose anything could happen.

Even Prey-Youth had his day with the bikini remark...

I wonder why he retracted his assinine statement...Can't he force some sense into these cheap underlings?...

Another example of why the RTP are ignored by the general Thai public. A force to be scorned at and ridiculed by teenage girls, riding mopeds without helmets


No wonder the Country is in such a state and long will it continue while a General with the brains of a 7 year old continues to run the Country.

I wish they (RTP) would take her to court.
It would have to be in the UK and they would have to defend themselves against her accustations. Would make a very interesting case. Newspapers here lining up to pay her court costs for the exclusive.

Hell, they should sue Anonymous while they're at it...Heh...

I'm sure the brainless idiots have already filed a warrant against Khun Anoneemuss

They should cancel Anonymouses passport and prevent him from travelling.

And in a land where the Boy scout/ Hunger games salute, publicly eating a sandwich, and criticising a dog can land you in very hot water, I am amazed at the tolerance of this dictatorship in still allowing his visage to be publicly shown.

Originally Posted by BaitongBoy

Anonymous

Originally Posted by panama hat

Anoneemuss

Originally Posted by sabang

Anonymouses

Originally Posted by sabang

They should cancel Anonymouses passport and prevent him from travelling.

They'd have to know how to spell his name correctly.

I suggest we post several versions of Khun Aanooneemuus' name to foil the best efforts of the RTP Internet Snooping Division.

Signed

Monsieur 'Ah-No-Neemousse

27/12/2015 – Ko Tao, Thailand

Yesterday night my friend Davy got beaten up in ‘The Sunset Beach Bar’ on Ko Tao. What happened is unaceptable. Here is the story.

‘The Sunset Beach Bar’ is one of the most popular places to party on Ko Tao. As always, what ended up to be a terrible night, had a pretty good start.

Ien, Davy, Yasmin and I and another friend are watching the fire acrobates in front of the bar on the beach, just like many other tourists. At some point, it’s not very late in the evening yet, about 11h-ish, Ien and Yasmin decide to go home, and I stay at the bar with Davy and his friend. The focus on the fire artists weakens, so everbody goes dancing around the pool area, and so do we. At some point the staff announces through the microphone something about a free bucket and jumping in the pool. Together with some other people, Davy and his friend decide to jump in the pool. The party goes on for a while, and I am dancing with two Finish girls I’ve just met. The next thing I see is my friend Davy on the ground being pushed in my direction, his face full of blood. Two girls and one guy, all three of them bar staff, are hitting him. The guy is stomping him with his foot, shoes on, the girls do the same. Everything happened so fast. I try to stand in front of Davy because I was pretty sure they would not hit me. While Davy is behind me – not fighting back since the beginning, but just being a victim of their actions – they keep trying to get as close as possible to continue beating him up.

A few tall male customers see what is happening and try to get the agressive people away from Davy. I tell Davy and his friend: «We have to get out of here!» I try to take Davy’s hand to follow me and leave, but we can’t. The agressive people keep coming to him like dogs that want a piece of meat. Luckily, the tall guys keep defending Davy, and one of them succeeds to take him out of the bar together with Davy’s friend.

This all happened so quickly. I was – and still am – so shocked about this event. I could see it was not a fight with other tourists, but that it were people from the staff. Whatever my friend did, I was thinking at that moment, no one ever deserves to be beaten up like this. I talked to other customers afterwards, and they too were shocked by the severe cruel approach. It really looked like they wanted to kill my friend. Not just one push or one punch on the nose, but they were continuously hitting my poor friend who was sitting on the floor like a foetus, his hands on his head, trying to protect his face.

Once we are safe on the beach, I ask Davy and his friend what happened. Apparentely, between when I saw them jumping in the pool and when I saw my friend with his face full of blood, they were asking about the free bucket they were promised. But they were told that they wouldn’t get it, and Davy began to argue that they should. Davy was angry and showed his fuck-you-finger to the bar lady. The next thing that happened was Davy being beaten up.

Customers fighting in bars isn’t rare. In this case, it was the staff beating up a customer. This is unacceptable. I have worked in bars and restaurants before myself, so I know it is not always easy to handle drunk or annoying customers in general, but as a bartender or owner or whatever, it is your task to peacefully solve whatever problems occure. If you are too annoyed with a customer, you just tell him or her to leave the place, or you ask your bodyguard to take the person out, or – if it’s really bad – you call the police. If you can’t handle customers arguing over a free drink, please don’t work at a bar, especially not one on a party island in Thailand. And in any case, what you don’t do is beat the shit out of someone.

I know these things happen all the time. I have seen some fights in my life: in movies, or in the corner of a bar between drunk people. But what happened last night – the animal-like cruelty in which some people can hurt another human being – is something I have never seen happening in front of my eyes before.

Some people told us to let it go. They told us that the only thing that will happen if we go to the police, is that the rich bar owner will pay them to close the case. But we didn’t care. If everyone closes their eyes all the time to these kinds of events, nothing will ever change. If because of this some people will not go to this bar anymore, that would already be an achievement.

Right after we are back on the beach, I decide we should go and get Ien. Davy, his friend, and I are in shock because of what happened, so we need a person like Ien around who can stay calm and think clearly. The moment we are arranging a taxi to the police station, two police officers happen to drive by on a motorcycle at the corner of the street where our hostel is, so we stop them and tell them what happened.

They ask Davy’s friend and me if we would recognize the people that were beating up Davy. We say we would, and they tell us to go back to the bar, that they will come and find us, so that we can point out who did it. In the meanwhile Ien takes care of Davy. Davy’s friend and I wait at the bar for more than half an hour, but we see no police coming. I recognize some people who saw what had happened and who were involved in keeping the aggressors away. I ask a few of them if they would recognize who was hitting my friend. They all say yes. It were the two ladies from the staff behind the bar. I recognize them too. But we don’t see the tall guy with the red t-shirt anywhere. Everyone is sure the two ladies behind the bar were involved, though. The police is still not here, and we don’t know what to do. Should I ask some contact info so I can contact the people who saw what happened? I ask a guy’s email address, but he doesn’t want to give it. He tells me there is nothing we can do about this. I stress to all of them I am big on these things. I explain them that I used to work in a holocaust and human rights museum where we teach kids about the mechanisms of mass violence. I tell them that I realise that fighting against this is only a small act if you put it into perspective, so yes, on this little island, speaking out is indeed only something tiny. But all the small things together will make a difference one day.

Compare it to how we teach kids that bullying someone at school may seem like an innocent act while in fact it is a horrible thing to do, that exclusion is the first step towards mass violence, and that once the exclusion and the bullying expand to a bigger scale, it’s already one step too far. Likewise, I want people to understand that violence is NEVER the solution and that they should never accept it as something that just happens to be part of our society. Don’t get me wrong, of course we all know violence is part of the world where we live in, but that doesn’t mean we should just accept ‘how it is’ and merely witness it whithout doing anything about it. It is of course always easier to close your eyes. Of course it would have been easier to just go home, clean Davy’s face, go to bed, and close the case. But that way we would’ve give the signal that beating up innocent people is okay, that there will be no consequences. (Luckily, everything ended well and Davy is still alive.)

Davy’s friend and I don’t see the police anywhere, and a security guy comes up to us, asking what we are still doing at the bar. He tells us the police stopped by and that we should go now. And that’s what we do. Upon arrival in the hostel I don’t see Ien and Davy anywhere. So I walk to the police station hoping to catch them there. Along the way a girl asks me: «Are you okay?» She tells me that she and her two friends had seen what had happened, and that they too are shocked by the events. They had witnessed the scene at the bar, and how Davy just got kicked in the face for no reason. I was in the middle of the fight, and everything went so fast, so I ask them to describe what they had seen. They described the exact same string of events I was telling you about before. The rage of the people acting like wild animals had struck them too. They tell me right away that if needed, they would want to testify about what they had seen. I thank them and give my contact information.

At the police station I get told that Ien and Davy went back to the bar with a few police officers for identification. The only thing I can do now, since I can’t reach them, is to go back to the hostel and wait for them. When they arrive back they tell me how the staff behind the bar was just laughing with what had happened. However, they did find the tall guy who punched Davy, and took him to the police station. Ien managed somehow to stay calm. She said to this guy that he should imagine his own son being beaten up like this before doing it to others. The story ends with a report signed by both parties, and this guy having to pay a 10.000 Bath fine.

It is true that at least something happened as a consequence: this guy had to pay. But of course this is not a sustainable long-term solution. More awareness about not using violence to solve issues is key.

Ko Tao seems to be a place where violence is justified by paying a certain amount of money to the police. If this one guy would beat Davy up again, the police reassured us, he would go to jail. But seriouly, how many times does a person have to be beaten up before something really changes? The police handled our case, probably because we are tourists and they want to keep us happy without attracting too much negative attention. But what about poor locals? Will they take care of a Burmese immigrant being beaten up, for example? Will those who pay the police be able to get away with everything, or is there a line they should not cross? What’s the price to pay to ignore these things? The only thing I ask the tourists visiting Ko Tao is to open their mouth when they see anything similar happening. Don’t just look away while keeping on dancing, but please, testify, go to the police, try to fight this small-scale injustice, so maybe one day life will be better for the people who actually live here.

Because that night everybody told me about the corruption on the island, I did some research and found out about the ‘maffia’ that’s operating here. Please read the following news article about the two Burmese men who recently (24 december 2015) have been sentenced to death for a double murder on Ko Tao, while everyone on the island knows all too well they are in fact innocent:

Thailand backpacker murders: Burmese workers sentenced to death | World news | The Guardian

Also, this is a very interesing and thorough article about what exactly is going on on Ko Tao, and about the above story of the two Burmese being used as scapegoats: The Dark Side of Thailand?s Island Paradise | MikeE's Travels ? The Adventures of Just Another Kiwi on his OE (Note: a few people who have been living on Ko Tao for quite a while and who we happened to have a conversation with about what happened to Davy basically told us the exact same things that are put forward in the article.)

Written by Planeless Traveller Charlie.

Yesterday night my friend Davy got beaten up in ?The Sunset Beach Bar? on Ko Tao. What happened is unacceptable. Here is the story. | Planeless Travellers

Thai police respond to scathing criticism from sister of Koh Tao murder victim

Kingdom's judicial and police chiefs go on counter-offensive after blistering attack by sister of murdered British backpacker Hannah Witheridge




Philip Sherwell By Philip Sherwell, Asia Editor7:09PM GMT 14 Jan 2016

Thai police chiefs and judicial officials have rejected a series of accusations from the sister of murdered British tourist Hannah Witheridge.

They responded to the criticism as hackers linked to the Anonymous cyber collective knocked nearly 300 Thai court and government websites offline in retaliation for the death sentences imposed on two Burmese men.

A spokesman for the Court of Justice said that the Office of the Judiciary had already conducted a preliminary investigation into the allegations made in a Facebook posting by Laura Witheridge.

Miss Witheridge dismissed the police investigation into the murders of her sister and fellow Briton David Miller on Koh Tao in Sept 2014 as “bungled”.


She also alleged that court officials had made highly offensive comments to her family and linked to an Anonymous video accusing the Thai police of using the two Burmese men as “scapegoats”.

The court official noted that the victims’ relatives and representatives of the British embassy attended the trial of the two murder migrant workers, who were found guilty on Christmas Eve.

“Throughout the trial, neither complaint nor any improper conduct was brought up for immediate action to be taken against,” said the spokesman.

“Moreover all judges and court officials are consciously aware of the rights of the victim and her family afforded by law. We are under the legal duty to ensure those rights will be protected and that they will not be undermined by any action or person.”

The spokesman invited relatives of the murdered woman to submit a formal complaint through the British embassy so that a full investigation could be conducted.

Thai police commanders also rejected Miss Witheridge’s allegations, which included claims of widespread corruption and cover-ups of deaths of Western visitors.
Gen Chakthip Chaijinda, the national police chief, has ordered his force’s legal affairs unit to examine her denunciations to decide whether to take legal action against her.


Miss Witheridge posted her lengthy comment – later removed – in the wake of a death of another young British tourist on Koh Tao.

The body of Luke Miller was found in a hotel swimming pool. Police said that they believed he had plunged into the water and struck his head while drunk, even before an autopsy was conducted.

Miss Witheridge said that she was speaking out in frustration after reading the “ignorant comment” that Thailand is “the most beautiful place in the world” following the latest death.


Her comments put her at striking odds with the family of David Miller, who said they supported the police investigation and court hearings and were convinced of the guilt of the convicted men.

Zaw Lin and Wei Phyo were found guilty largely on the basis of disputed DNA evidence after retracting confessions that they were said were forced by torture.

Cyber-hackers have declared war on Thailand over the verdicts. A group, believed to be based in Burma and associated with Anonymous, first defaced and knocked offline several Thai police websites.

And this week, they launched their mass attack on Thai court websites, declaring the strike was “in protest over the Koh Tao murder verdict”. The convictions have aroused anger in the men’s home country, also known as Myanmar.


Suebpong Sripongkul, the Court of Justice spokesman, said the hacking would have no effect on the verdict and said it would pursue legal action under the computer crimes act against those responsible.

“The Court wishes to state that the attack will not result in the ruling on the Koh Tao case as the court issued a ruling based on the law,” he said, noting that the two men could file an appeal.

The defence team is expected to lodge an appeal in coming weeks by contesting the DNA evidence that was used to convict the men.

Thai police respond to scathing criticism from sister of Koh Tao murder victim - Telegraph

Thais sure do pwn farangs something awesome.

Originally Posted by Luigi

Thais sure do pwn farangs something awesome.

Found some XL underpants under your bed, have we ?

Originally Posted by taxexile

i doubt very much if even the thai police would be so stupid as to sue her for a facebook posting made from another country

But the Thai Navy would.

Good article here on the Koh Tao case.

Thailand Murders: Local Justice on Trial | The Diplomat

^

As per usual the world knows Thailand is corrupt as fok.

I wonder how the Dead guys brother is holding up given the overwhelming opposition concerning the verdict.

I still say that a heavily armed Demolition Team should be sent to Turtle Murder Island...

Take no prisoners...Annihilate the bastards and their Bar of Smiles under the cloak of darkness...

Come dawn, it will be fair weather once more and peace will prevail where fear still rules...

Send them to an early hell...

^

Well if they are going to do that it's only fair that every other beach resort gets the same treatment.

Kicking it off in Pattaya, move onto Phuket and then start on every Island.

But yes, returning the Islands to the glory days would be fantastic.

^
Terry , Pattaya is full of SAS men already it's just the the matter of getting them off the bar stools and their ready to go ,

^

They would most probably work for beer money as well.

Not to many wars going on at the mo.

The cumbags who did this are laughing that they got off. But somewhere in their twisted minds they know they are filth.

It will haunt them forever.

Originally Posted by thailazer

I am just glad that I have the memories of visiting the smaller islands 15 years ago before money sucking bar owners, banana boats, and jet skis.... Those times when restaurant owners would literally adopt you were terrific.

Mate,

I'm not trying to go one up on you but I first hit those islands 28 years ago, I thought I was in foking heaven.

The local Thais I encountered in those early days mainly were good, decent, honest and friendly people.

Lots of guys on this forum who were on the Islands a long time before me though.

Originally Posted by Baas Babelaas

It will haunt them forever.

Joking aint ya.

They are sitting back now drinking whiskey laughing their heads off.