Imprisoned Canadian Wanted In Thailand For Murder

[sriracha john]

Family's long wait for justice

As the legal wheels grind in Canada, Thais seek answers in the brutal murder of 'a very nice girl'

When Michael Joseph Charles Karas showed up at the popular Thai resort of Pattaya in 1994, he was already a fugitive from a criminal career back home in Canada.

According to federal parole records, he had failed to return to a correctional centre in Kingston, Ont., around Jan. 22 that year.

He travelled to Thailand on a false Canadian passport under the name Michael David Morgan.

Before long, he had moved in with a local woman, Suwannee Ratanaprakorn, and was said to be "into exporting jewelry to Canada."

The couple lived in modest hotels -- he rode a small motorcycle; she quit her restaurant job and went out afternoons and evenings to "beauty shops" and discos.

According to Thai investigators, in September 1996 Karas was heard quarreling with Suwannee by staff at the Bay Breeze Hotel. He was observed repeatedly hauling heavy luggage into a taxi, and checked out of the hotel around 3 a.m. Sept. 24.

Karas left Thailand the next day and returned to Canada. He was arrested in Vancouver Oct. 3, 1996, on an outstanding warrant for his earlier parole violation.

Around the same time, Suwannee's dismembered body was found dumped in a swamp. Her shorn, severed head, legs and an arm were found later in a field, now the site of a vacation hotel.

Karas has been in Lower Mainland prisons ever since, serving the remainder of a 26-year sentence that ends in 2011.

But he is also fighting a decade-old request for his extradition to Thailand on suspicion of Suwannee's murder, a crime that carries the death penalty there.

In September 2004, it appeared as though Karas would be facing his accusers when the federal justice minister in Ottawa issued an order of surrender -- essentially green-lighting his removal to Thailand.

But, a month later, his Vancouver lawyer, Glen Orris, applied to the B.C. Court of Appeal for a Judicial Review of the minister's order, and a hearing was adjourned due to Orris's other commitments.

At the same time, Karas confessed to a cold-case armed bank robbery, claiming he wanted "nothing hanging over his head" when he was eventually released.

On Dec. 12, 2005, he was sentenced to three years for the robbery, time that must be served prior to his extradition, in accordance with Canada's Extradition Act.

"A cynic could say it could also have been a strategic or a tactical plea," B.C. Provincial Court Judge J. Spence said, prior to sentencing.

In sunny Pattaya, far from the grinding machinations of Canada's extradition system, the case against Karas grows murkier.

Witnesses move away, and police move on.

The population is roughly 500,000, including 100,000 resident foreigners and nearly five million overnight visitors a year.

Police Major Taweesak Suathong heads a 12-member Suppression Special Crime and Transnational Crime unit that deals specifically with the city's "foreigner cases."

If you're white and you're wanted, Pattaya is an easy place to get lost, says Suathong. His unit apprehends around 20 foreign fugitives every year.

The Karas case may still be a priority for Bangkok, he says, but on the ground his officers have more pressing concerns.

Detectives were unable to produce the case file on Suwannee's murder when requested by The Province.

But in the air-conditioned squad room, mention of the pretty girl who was dismembered and the prime suspect who disappeared sets the room abuzz.

"It was a very shocking case," says one detective. He said police identified Suwannee by her "distinct fake eyebrows."

Bay Breeze manager Phayow Sriem says Karas and Suwannee stayed for three-month stints on at least two occasions. She found it odd that the couple registered under Suwannee's name and always paid cash. But they kept to themselves, she says, and the room was clean.

Occasionally there "was fighting, shouting inside that room," she says.

"The reception call and ask. She say, 'It's okay.'"

On the day of her death, Suwannee called down for a light bulb and an "engineer" was sent to Room 805 at 5 p.m. She didn't go out that night, Sriem recalls, and at 11 o'clock Karas returned.

"He came back again and went out again, maybe three or four times. At four o'clock [in the morning] he says to reception he wants to check out of the hotel."

Later that same day, police arrived with a picture of Suwannee's severed head, her distinctive hair hacked away.

"The police come and ask has anyone seen this girl," Sriem recalls. "The regulars say, 'Oh, it's Suwannee. Oh!'"

Guido Krohl, a German expatriate who owns the Beercorner bar across the street, watched events from his regular sidewalk table.

"She was a very nice girl, very pretty," recalls Krohl. "She had very strong hair. I remember that, like everybody. Very long hair. A lot of people where shocked. No people wanted to go in the hotel for a long time."

Karas has long maintained that he fled Thailand because he feared police there would discover his criminal past and pin Suwannee's murder on him.

"I am no angel," he has said. "But I did not kill anyone."

He told a federal parole board in 1998 that Suwannee was "likely the victim of a cover-up for another murder," but he did not elaborate.

At an extradition hearing in Vancouver in 2001, B.C. Supreme Court Justice J. Lysyk determined that Thailand's case against Karas was not strong enough to support a charge of murder.

He determined that the evidence of a hotel maid who heard Karas and Suwannee quarreling, and Karas's flight from Thailand, implied some culpability, but didn't demonstrate intent to murder.

Lysyk ordered Karas committed to await surrender for extradition on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

And it was on the condition that Karas be tried only for manslaughter that the justice minister in 2004 made his order of surrender.

Thailand, however, is insisting on a murder charge, The Province discovered during a meeting at the Office of the Attorney General in Bangkok with the head of Thailand's International Affairs Department.

"We cannot guarantee against the death penalty," says Deputy Director General Piyaphant Udomsilpa. "That is at the discretion of the court. We can't interfere."

Under Thai law, a person cannot be charged in absentia. Karas is the subject of a Thai arrest warrant containing a prosecution order, and not formal charges, which will be established in court.

"We want him to come here and face the charges," Udomsilpa insists.

Udomsilpa would not release her department's file on Karas. Her position -- Thailand's position -- remains firm: It is not for Canada to dictate to Thailand what charges can and cannot be laid against offenders wanted for crimes against Thai nationals committed on Thai soil.

According to federal parole records, Karas, 54, has "not physically harmed any of [his] victims." He may be a fraud artist, a bank robber and a flight risk (he has escaped or walked away from prison four times in the past), but Karas -- university educated and reportedly from a well-to-do Ontario family -- has never been convicted of assault, let alone murder or manslaughter. His last conviction for a violent offence was in 1987.

Karas did not respond to requests through his lawyer and Corrections Canada for an interview.

Glen Orris, a veteran defence lawyer, says Karas wants his extradition case resolved "the sooner the better."

"His position throughout is that he's not responsible. There's lots of evidence of him moving body parts around, or bodies around, but the issue is, how did the death occur?

"Any country, any right-thinking country, could have to be concerned with returning anybody to Thailand at this point," Orris says.

Regardless, Orris says he is not appealing the decision of the extradition judge, but rather the order of surrender.

"Our position is that Lysyk had it right when he decided that the only evidence that was before him satisfied him only that there was manslaughter, but not murder," says Orris.

The fugitive's lawyer believes the minister is prepared to extradite his client "generally," and leave it up to Thailand what to charge him with.

"My position is that the minister . . . must comply with the ruling of the court," says Orris, adding official, irrevocable assurances from Thailand must be received by Canada before Karas is sent anywhere.

Canada's extradition process is of cold comfort to Suwannee's family, whose home in remote Nongsang village is lit only by lanterns.

The family pores over a surviving photograph of their beloved Suwannee, remembering her bright smile and lush, dark hair.

Attractive and ambitious, she was 24 when, in late 1994, she fled peasant life for the glamour of party-town Pattaya.

There, pretty village girls can triple their families' incomes by sending home money earned in bars and restaurants.

"She never should have left," says her frail father, Prayoon Ratanaprakorn, as he sits sobbing beside his wife, Naree, on the floor of their home.

Suwannee's twin, Supaporn, says her sister left without a word.

"She was very happy, she loved children," she recalls. "She had many friends here."

Prayoon says she twice brought Karas to their home. "At that time that guy was very nice," he says. "That guy come out and say he give money so we don't have to work . . . we were waiting for them to get married and move to Canada."

After Suwannee's death, says her mother, Naree, police took her and her husband to Room 805 of the Bay Breeze Hotel.

"I saw the bloodshed on the bathroom floor," she says.

One day, she believes, the "law and the government" will uncover the truth of her daughter's death.

"One day he will be returned to Thailand," she says of the man she believes is responsible.

"We cannot forgive Karas."

THE KARAS CASE

- Jan. 22, 1994: Karas breaches parole in Canada and relocates to Thailand.

- Sept. 23, 1996: Suwannee killed and dismembered.

- Sept. 24, 1996: Police find body parts in swamp.

- Sept. 25, 1996: Karas leaves Thailand for Canada.

- Oct. 3, 1996: Arrested in Vancouver on outstanding warrant for parole violation, with Canadian passport under Michael David Morgan.

- May 1997: Thailand launches extradition.

- Oct. 25, 1999: Arrested in prison on an extradition warrant.

- June 1, 2001: Ordered committed for extradition on the offence of manslaughter.

- Sept. 14, 2004: Ordered surrendered to Thailand subject to specified assurances.

- October 2004: Confesses to cold-case bank robbery and sentenced to three years.

- November 2006: Case adjourned so DOJ can "reassess situation" in post-coup Thailand.

- Feb. 15, 2007: Case adjourned without a set date in B.C. Court of Appeal.

The Vancouver Province

[sriracha john]

Additional background information published earlier:

November 21, 2002

'I did not kill anyone'

Thai police say a Canadian bank robber sitting in a B.C. prison killed his girlfriend and then used an electric saw to dismember her body. But the man who faces the death penalty, if extradited, swears: "I did not kill anyone"

Michael Joseph Charles Karas aka Mike Karas aka Morgan Miles aka Mike Morgan was one of those types.

A bank robber by profession, Karas was on day parole in 1994 when he decided not to go back to his halfway house. Armed with a false passport and some C$240,000, that he claims to have won playing Canadian lotteries, Karas took a plane to Thailand instead.

He had by then served 12 of 24 years for withdrawing cash from Canadian banks using fake bombs.

With money and lots of time, Karas, 36, took on the identity of Morgan Miles, a Canadian computer technician who wanted to set up an Internet gambling operation in Bangkok.

Not long after Karas entered Thailand, he made his way to Pattaya, a beach resort city 100 miles southeast of Bangkok.

There the Toronto native, a former student who ran marathons and studied at York, Queens and Simon Fraser University met 25-year-old Suwannee Tukata Ratanaprakorn.

The whirlwind romance rescued Suwanee from poverty, brought her affluence and developed into a common law relationship. Approximately four months after the couple met, Suwannee returned to her home village of Udorn with Karas to tell her father that they had been married, according to reports in a Thai newspaper.

Suwannee's father would later remember his son-in-law as Miles Morgan, a quiet type who always seemed preoccupied.

Except for a few letters, one in which Suwannee said she was going to Canada and one in which she said they were returning to Pattaya, there wasn't much communication between the daughter and her parents.

Karas aka Miles Morgan was at that time also having difficulty getting his Internet gaming business going because local cops were asking for bribes and because he was afraid they would come to know who he really was.

The couple lived in their South Pattaya home in relative obscurity until Sept 24, 1996.

On that morning Suwannee Tukata Ratanaprakorn's dismembered body was found in a field off Soi 17 near Pattaya's Flybird Condo.

She was 27.

Local media spared no details on the crime. 'Her body had been savagely cut into pieces, with her arms, legs and head being found in the field,' a local Pattaya paper reported.

Karas, meanwhile fled back to Canada where he was arrested on Oct 3, 1996 by Vancouver police who threw him in jail for parole violation.

I left to avoid being killed, said Karas in a telephone interview with The Asian Pacific Post from the medium security prison in Mission, B.C. which has been home for the last few years.

He said he fled Thailand because he feared police there would discover his unsavoury background and pin the murder on him.

Since his arrest in 1996, Karas and his lawyers have been fighting a complicated legal battle with the Kingdom of Thailand that is adamant he be returned to stand trial for the murder of Suwannee.

Karas maintains;"I am no angel but I did not kill anyone"

His lawyer, Keven McCullough of Victoria, B.C., told The Asian Pacific Post that the Thai authorities 'do not have a scintilla of evidence against Karas'.

In submissions to the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, McCullough said statements by Thai witnesses were changed to bolster the evidence.

"The minister ... must consider the obvious attempts by the Kingdom of Thailand to fraudulently tailor its evidence in order to secure the committal of Mr. Karas," he told the court.

Two very different stories have emerged so far as to what happened before Suwannee's remains were found on Sept 24, 1996.

According to Karas he had gone to Bangkok the day before, came back, found his girlfriend missing and never saw her alive again.

"I can prove I was in Bangkok," he said.

The next day, while watching a Thai-language TV newscast, he saw a graphic picture of the head and other body parts and knew that it was his girlfriend.

"I went crazy..I can only speculate what happened...she had some baggage...some business background and that may have come back to kill her," he said.

Despite a massive police hunt with his pictures being posted at Thai exit points, Karas managed to give police the slip and returned to Canada. Thai police suspect he fled even before the remains were found.

Karas said that he left two days after the remains were found taking a flight from Bangkok to Vancouver.

Thai police also have a very different series of events running up to the gruesome discovery of Suwannee's remains.

According to their witnesses and investigators, Karas and his wife had checked into the Bay Breeze hotel in Pattaya around Sept 22, 1996.

Hotel staff allegedly told police Karas left the hotel on Sept. 23 at 9 p.m., and returned two hours later. At five the next morning, he checked out of the hotel, carrying a large, heavy suitcase, and boarded a bus.

When a hotel maid went to clean the room later that morning, she reported a strong odour of blood.

Police said they found bloodstains on the mirrors in the hotel room and on the rubber bath mat and found evidence of blood and human fat in the bathtub.

They believe Karas murdered Suwannee in the bathroom, and brought his own towels to clean up the blood, a sign of premeditation, as none of the hotel's towels or bed-sheets were used.

Karas, Thai police claim, killed his girlfriend because he was jealous of her seeing other men, and then used an electric saw to dismember her body.

"Nonsense...I was in Bangkok and I have written telling them that," said Karas.

After Karas was arrested for parole violation on his return to Canada, Thai authorities unsuccessfully tried twice to initiate extradition hearings against Karas.

The Canadian Justice Department said the evidence wasn't enough.

A third attempt went to court in Vancouver.

Karas and his lawyers argued that the evidence by Thai police was fabricated and that the extradition treaty between Thailand and Canada was invalid in this case.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ken Lysyk who heard the case ruled that Karas should not be extradited on a murder charge.

Instead, the judge gave the green light to extradite on the lesser charge of manslaughter. But the judge also said he does not have the jurisdiction to determine whether the extradition treaty between Thailand and Canada applies in this case.

The case is now before the federal justice minister whose decision could trigger another round of legal arguments.

The minister must first seek an assurance from Thailand that it will not execute Karas if found guilty, because the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that delivering accused murderers to a foreign jurisdiction where they might face the death penalty would offend 'fundamental justice', if such assurances are not obtained.

Further the minister and the courts have to weigh reports from the likes of Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department which have said Thailand's police and legal system have a woeful record of human rights abuses and corruption.

With no end in sight, Karas's lawyer is now considering filing a claim to argue that his client should be released from jail as his right to a fair and speedy trial has been compromised.

"I have been in jail for seven years for a case that everyone knows is not going anywhere," said Karas.

He firmly believes the murder of the peasant girl who hooked up with the Canadian bank robber, will never be tried in a Thailand court.

- Asian Pacific News Service

[lazeeboy]

Family's long wait for justice

As the legal wheels grind in Canada, Thais seek answers in the brutal murder of 'a very nice girl'

When Michael Joseph Charles Karas showed up at the popular Thai resort of Pattaya in 1994, he was already a fugitive from a criminal career back home in Canada.

According to federal parole records, he had failed to return to a correctional centre in Kingston, Ont., around Jan. 22 that year.

He travelled to Thailand on a false Canadian passport under the name Michael David Morgan.

Before long, he had moved in with a local woman, Suwannee Ratanaprakorn, and was said to be "into exporting jewelry to Canada."

The couple lived in modest hotels -- he rode a small motorcycle; she quit her restaurant job and went out afternoons and evenings to "beauty shops" and discos.

According to Thai investigators, in September 1996 Karas was heard quarreling with Suwannee by staff at the Bay Breeze Hotel. He was observed repeatedly hauling heavy luggage into a taxi, and checked out of the hotel around 3 a.m. Sept. 24.

Karas left Thailand the next day and returned to Canada. He was arrested in Vancouver Oct. 3, 1996, on an outstanding warrant for his earlier parole violation.

Around the same time, Suwannee's dismembered body was found dumped in a swamp. Her shorn, severed head, legs and an arm were found later in a field, now the site of a vacation hotel.

Karas has been in Lower Mainland prisons ever since, serving the remainder of a 26-year sentence that ends in 2011.

But he is also fighting a decade-old request for his extradition to Thailand on suspicion of Suwannee's murder, a crime that carries the death penalty there.

In September 2004, it appeared as though Karas would be facing his accusers when the federal justice minister in Ottawa issued an order of surrender -- essentially green-lighting his removal to Thailand.

But, a month later, his Vancouver lawyer, Glen Orris, applied to the B.C. Court of Appeal for a Judicial Review of the minister's order, and a hearing was adjourned due to Orris's other commitments.

At the same time, Karas confessed to a cold-case armed bank robbery, claiming he wanted "nothing hanging over his head" when he was eventually released.

On Dec. 12, 2005, he was sentenced to three years for the robbery, time that must be served prior to his extradition, in accordance with Canada's Extradition Act.

"A cynic could say it could also have been a strategic or a tactical plea," B.C. Provincial Court Judge J. Spence said, prior to sentencing.

In sunny Pattaya, far from the grinding machinations of Canada's extradition system, the case against Karas grows murkier.

Witnesses move away, and police move on.

The population is roughly 500,000, including 100,000 resident foreigners and nearly five million overnight visitors a year.

Police Major Taweesak Suathong heads a 12-member Suppression Special Crime and Transnational Crime unit that deals specifically with the city's "foreigner cases."

If you're white and you're wanted, Pattaya is an easy place to get lost, says Suathong. His unit apprehends around 20 foreign fugitives every year.

The Karas case may still be a priority for Bangkok, he says, but on the ground his officers have more pressing concerns.

Detectives were unable to produce the case file on Suwannee's murder when requested by The Province.

But in the air-conditioned squad room, mention of the pretty girl who was dismembered and the prime suspect who disappeared sets the room abuzz.

"It was a very shocking case," says one detective. He said police identified Suwannee by her "distinct fake eyebrows."

Bay Breeze manager Phayow Sriem says Karas and Suwannee stayed for three-month stints on at least two occasions. She found it odd that the couple registered under Suwannee's name and always paid cash. But they kept to themselves, she says, and the room was clean.

Occasionally there "was fighting, shouting inside that room," she says.

"The reception call and ask. She say, 'It's okay.'"

On the day of her death, Suwannee called down for a light bulb and an "engineer" was sent to Room 805 at 5 p.m. She didn't go out that night, Sriem recalls, and at 11 o'clock Karas returned.

"He came back again and went out again, maybe three or four times. At four o'clock [in the morning] he says to reception he wants to check out of the hotel."

Later that same day, police arrived with a picture of Suwannee's severed head, her distinctive hair hacked away.

"The police come and ask has anyone seen this girl," Sriem recalls. "The regulars say, 'Oh, it's Suwannee. Oh!'"

Guido Krohl, a German expatriate who owns the Beercorner bar across the street, watched events from his regular sidewalk table.

"She was a very nice girl, very pretty," recalls Krohl. "She had very strong hair. I remember that, like everybody. Very long hair. A lot of people where shocked. No people wanted to go in the hotel for a long time."

Karas has long maintained that he fled Thailand because he feared police there would discover his criminal past and pin Suwannee's murder on him.

"I am no angel," he has said. "But I did not kill anyone."

He told a federal parole board in 1998 that Suwannee was "likely the victim of a cover-up for another murder," but he did not elaborate.

At an extradition hearing in Vancouver in 2001, B.C. Supreme Court Justice J. Lysyk determined that Thailand's case against Karas was not strong enough to support a charge of murder.

He determined that the evidence of a hotel maid who heard Karas and Suwannee quarreling, and Karas's flight from Thailand, implied some culpability, but didn't demonstrate intent to murder.

Lysyk ordered Karas committed to await surrender for extradition on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

And it was on the condition that Karas be tried only for manslaughter that the justice minister in 2004 made his order of surrender.

Thailand, however, is insisting on a murder charge, The Province discovered during a meeting at the Office of the Attorney General in Bangkok with the head of Thailand's International Affairs Department.

"We cannot guarantee against the death penalty," says Deputy Director General Piyaphant Udomsilpa. "That is at the discretion of the court. We can't interfere."

Under Thai law, a person cannot be charged in absentia. Karas is the subject of a Thai arrest warrant containing a prosecution order, and not formal charges, which will be established in court.

"We want him to come here and face the charges," Udomsilpa insists.

Udomsilpa would not release her department's file on Karas. Her position -- Thailand's position -- remains firm: It is not for Canada to dictate to Thailand what charges can and cannot be laid against offenders wanted for crimes against Thai nationals committed on Thai soil.

According to federal parole records, Karas, 54, has "not physically harmed any of [his] victims." He may be a fraud artist, a bank robber and a flight risk (he has escaped or walked away from prison four times in the past), but Karas -- university educated and reportedly from a well-to-do Ontario family -- has never been convicted of assault, let alone murder or manslaughter. His last conviction for a violent offence was in 1987.

Karas did not respond to requests through his lawyer and Corrections Canada for an interview.

Glen Orris, a veteran defence lawyer, says Karas wants his extradition case resolved "the sooner the better."

"His position throughout is that he's not responsible. There's lots of evidence of him moving body parts around, or bodies around, but the issue is, how did the death occur?

"Any country, any right-thinking country, could have to be concerned with returning anybody to Thailand at this point," Orris says.

Regardless, Orris says he is not appealing the decision of the extradition judge, but rather the order of surrender.

"Our position is that Lysyk had it right when he decided that the only evidence that was before him satisfied him only that there was manslaughter, but not murder," says Orris.

The fugitive's lawyer believes the minister is prepared to extradite his client "generally," and leave it up to Thailand what to charge him with.

"My position is that the minister . . . must comply with the ruling of the court," says Orris, adding official, irrevocable assurances from Thailand must be received by Canada before Karas is sent anywhere.

Canada's extradition process is of cold comfort to Suwannee's family, whose home in remote Nongsang village is lit only by lanterns.

The family pores over a surviving photograph of their beloved Suwannee, remembering her bright smile and lush, dark hair.

Attractive and ambitious, she was 24 when, in late 1994, she fled peasant life for the glamour of party-town Pattaya.

There, pretty village girls can triple their families' incomes by sending home money earned in bars and restaurants.

"She never should have left," says her frail father, Prayoon Ratanaprakorn, as he sits sobbing beside his wife, Naree, on the floor of their home.

Suwannee's twin, Supaporn, says her sister left without a word.

"She was very happy, she loved children," she recalls. "She had many friends here."

Prayoon says she twice brought Karas to their home. "At that time that guy was very nice," he says. "That guy come out and say he give money so we don't have to work . . . we were waiting for them to get married and move to Canada."

After Suwannee's death, says her mother, Naree, police took her and her husband to Room 805 of the Bay Breeze Hotel.

"I saw the bloodshed on the bathroom floor," she says.

One day, she believes, the "law and the government" will uncover the truth of her daughter's death.

"One day he will be returned to Thailand," she says of the man she believes is responsible.

"We cannot forgive Karas."

THE KARAS CASE

- Jan. 22, 1994: Karas breaches parole in Canada and relocates to Thailand.

- Sept. 23, 1996: Suwannee killed and dismembered.

- Sept. 24, 1996: Police find body parts in swamp.

- Sept. 25, 1996: Karas leaves Thailand for Canada.

- Oct. 3, 1996: Arrested in Vancouver on outstanding warrant for parole violation, with Canadian passport under Michael David Morgan.

- May 1997: Thailand launches extradition.

- Oct. 25, 1999: Arrested in prison on an extradition warrant.

- June 1, 2001: Ordered committed for extradition on the offence of manslaughter.

- Sept. 14, 2004: Ordered surrendered to Thailand subject to specified assurances.

- October 2004: Confesses to cold-case bank robbery and sentenced to three years.

- November 2006: Case adjourned so DOJ can "reassess situation" in post-coup Thailand.

- Feb. 15, 2007: Case adjourned without a set date in B.C. Court of Appeal.

The Vancouver Province

if i was him i would keep coming up with crimes committed to stay in canada if hes facing a death sentance he can avoid coming back to thiland by staying in jail there thats better than dying i think no ?

[sriracha john]

UPDATE...his extradition to Thailand has been rescended...

B.C. court sets side extradition order for man accused of murder in Thailand

VANCOUVER - The B.C. Court of Appeal has set aside a federal order for a B.C. man to be surrendered to authorities in Thailand to face a murder charge.

In 2005, the federal justice minister ordered Michael Joseph Karas turned over to officials in Thailand, where he is accused of killing a woman and dismembering her body in 1996.

Karas appealed the order, saying it violated his rights because Thailand could not provide enough evidence to support a murder charge, and because the order was at odds with an earlier B.C. court ruling that said he could be extradited only for manslaughter.

Karas also argued that Thailand never promised that he will not be executed if convicted of murder.

The appeal court says the minister acted outside his jurisdiction when he ordered the surrender of Karas on terms that violated the earlier B.C. court ruling.

It has sent the issue back to the minister, saying any new order for the surrender of Karas must deal with the offence of manslaughter only.

- The Canadian Press / 20-06-08

[imaneggspurt]

Simply amazing how a person can live with this ,.these career criminals no matter how well educated are stupid arent they, how many get away with it for life,.and then when caught red handed or innocent run off,.,.i hope if he is guilty that he does get the death penalty,.let it be a warning that the world is becoming a smaller place and all the low lifes that run to thailand wont be safe, here is a prime example that letting these types in wont keep them straight,( as you would think if on the run ).as i said they are stupid,.i am normally a pacifist but in this case if guilty this guy needs treating like a mad dog and putting down,...R.I.P to the victim,.

Edited June 21, 2008 by imaneggspurt

[ukrules]

I believe if he lived in Europe he would be free today !

Nobody is extradited from a European country if they face charges which could possibly result in the death penalty.

It appears that the legal system in thailand is sending out a message here.

If you were to commit a capital offence in Thailand and make your way back to Europe you would be free with no chance of extradition due to the fact that there is no guarantee of the charges the offender would face.

How do they say it - TIT

[robblok]

This is really so bad if it were the other way around you would have foreigners shouting about how bad the justice system in Thailand was. This shows that Western countries are fuc_ked up too. Not that i did not know that before.

[toptuan]

I believe if he lived in Europe he would be free today !

Nobody is extradited from a European country if they face charges which could possibly result in the death penalty.

It appears that the legal system in thailand is sending out a message here.

If you were to commit a capital offence in Thailand and make your way back to Europe you would be free with no chance of extradition due to the fact that there is no guarantee of the charges the offender would face.

How do they say it - TIT

And, TIE

[geriatrickid]

Or maybe the court in Canada is right. The Thai authorities have no case, and the past histories of falsified evidence and inept investigations did not create the necessary level of confidence. In Canada, the crown prosecutor has to present sufficient evidence to support the case for extradition. Obviously there was insufficient evidence to do that. Canada now has a policy of not waiving extraditions where there is a possibility of the death penalty as has been demonstrated by a recent US request for extradition. Maybe the fellow is guilty, but there's also a chance he's not.

[dotcom]

Mexico is just the same. They will not allow extradiction of wanted criminals who face the death penalty.

They have a very skewed sense of "justice". AFAIAK Thailand can mete out justice any way they see fit.

[katana]

Just saw in Today's Thairath (09/09/11) that finally, after 15 years in Canada, he's been extradited back to Thailand to face charges for the murder.

http://www.thairath.co.th/content/region/200596

Video of him in custody of Chonburi police:

http://pattaya.chonburi.police.go.th/?name=news&file=readnews&id=57

[Boater]

http://www.thaivisa....ted-to-pattaya/

being covered here in a new topic

[Buchholz]

Just saw in Today's Thairath (09/09/11) that finally, after 15 years in Canada, he's been extradited back to Thailand to face charges for the murder.

http://www.thairath.co.th/content/region/200596

Video of him in custody of Chonburi police:

http://pattaya.chonburi.police.go.th/?name=news&file=readnews&id=57

Thanks for the update, katana.

It should be to be an interesting case now that he is finally in Thailand.

.

[Buchholz]

THE KARAS CASE

- Jan. 22, 1994: Karas breaches parole in Canada and relocates to Thailand.

- Sept. 23, 1996: Suwannee killed and dismembered.

- Sept. 24, 1996: Police find body parts in swamp.

- Sept. 25, 1996: Karas leaves Thailand for Canada.

- Dec. 12, 2003, the first execution by lethal injection was carried out in Thailand.

Edited September 9, 2011 by Buchholz

[Tywais]

http://www.thaivisa....ted-to-pattaya/

being covered here in a new topic

Updated topic above.

//Closed//