Phuket's Nepalese to Meet Over Freeing of Confessed Rapist - Phuket Wan
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Confessed multiple rapist Parkbhum Maneerat with police in April
Photo by phuketwan.com/file
Phuket's Nepalese to Meet Over Freeing of Confessed Rapist
By Phuketwan Reporter
Saturday, September 10, 2011
PHUKET: Leaders among Phuket's Nepalese community are to meet on Sunday over the freeing of a man who confessed earlier this year to being a serial rapist of Nepalese women on Phuket.
Police Lieutenant Patapee Srichai, who carried out the investigation of the case against Parkbhum Maneerat, 29, said yesterday he was surprised to learn the man had been freed.
The only charge Parkbhum still faces is impersonating a police officer, according to a report in this week's Phuket Gazette.
The President of the Thai-Nepalese Association of Phuket, Phanupong Limbuprasertkul, 42, told Phuketwan that many people among Phuket's Nepalese community of about 3000 were living in fear that Parkbhum would rape again.
''We feel we can't trust the local authorities,'' he said.
Khun Parkbhum, a married floor polish salesman with two young children who lives in Phuket City, was freed in June.
His year-long reign of terror ended when the latest of his victims, a 25-year-old woman, went to police in Patong. She had been kidnapped and taken to Krabi, where she was raped about 15 times.
Khun Parkbhum's method, posing as a police officer, was to threaten the women with exposure or that he would end their permission to stay in Thailand if they did not accompany him.
About 200 people from the Nepalese community gathered outside Patong's Kathu Police Station after Khun Parkbhum's arrest in April, grateful to have him in custody.
The outcome of the case against Khun Parkbhum is likely to be closely watched by Phuket's international envoys, who have been campaigning for better treatment on Phuket for women who make allegations of rape.
British honorary consul Martin Carpenter told a regular quarterly meeting between honorary consuls and Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha last month that a British woman who alleged she was raped on Phuket decided earlier this year not to pursue the case.
She felt as though she was not being listened to sympathetically by police, Mr Carpenter said.
The case of a French woman who said she was raped on Phuket last month only became apparent to Phuket's French honorary consul when her name appeared on a list of offences involving expats prepared for the consul's meeting.
Phuket police are supposed to notify honorary consuls or embassies of serious allegations involving their citizens immediately.