Dogmatix

This is not a surprise at all. The circumstantial evidence against Chris Ware seems very thin and the Burmese were obvious police targets.

The longer it goes on without any credible arrests, the greater the suspicion of one of the normal causes of police investigative failure in violent crimes of tourists, i.e. police involvement. Here the names of Kirsty Jones, Leo del Pinto, Adam Lloyd and Vanessa Arscott (RIP) spring to mind and they must be a tiny tip of the iceberg. I wonder how many Thais have been murdered by serial police killers who are still at large to continue their lives of crime.

Timeline

7 Brumese suspects

2 brother English backpackers who knew them suspects

1 farang in Bangkok strong suspect but not arrested just watched

11 more Burmese suspects because of bloody clothing

1 totally unknown strong suspect because he was running on camera then walking on the same camera later. appears Asian.

Is a 3rd grader conducting the investigation?

Are there absolutely no Thai suspects/witnesses/persons of interest? GMAFB.

Oh yeah and Thai Visa favorite PM Prayuth joining in to condemn the farangs who were killed in early morning hours because the foriegn press makes them think it is okay to wear bikinis in Thailand.

Forget about the bloodstained pants. Those seem to be as common amongst farang backpackers and Burmese slave workers in Koh Tao as ripped jeans are in the Siam Paragon in Bangkok.

It is time for proper respect of Thai culture by foreigners who should also immediately increase the amount of cash they give away to Thais, preferably by wire transfer without ever coming to the Kingdom.

Bikinis have no place in modest Thailand, except those worn by Thai women in go-go bars in the proper pursuit of foreign exchange to support the balance of payments.

Unsurprisingly, preliminary DNA test results now released on Thai PBS show that none of the DNA found at the scene matches either the Burmese or Christopher Ware.

So the BiB seem to have been looking in all the wrong places and have probably allowed the real killers to slip through their fingers. Thank heavens for DNA. Without it the police would have already secured a cast iron confession from the Burmese with the standard blow torch to the testicles technique.

So that means they might be able to catch foreign criminals who have been finger printed in Thailand who were deported after serving their sentences and try to come back after changing their names or on a false passport. They won't be able to catch criminals on the Interpol database because they refuse to subscribe to the service, nor can they detect fake passports on the Interpol list for the same reason. Theoretically they will be able to detect Thai criminals who have fled the country but they are likely to have paid off Immigration to let them slip in and out of Thailand on their legal Cambodian (or even Montenegrin passports),

Why should the police be responsible for the actions of adults? They are required when the adults throw tantrums. Unfortunately adult tantrums result in a bit more than tears.

.Let me spell it out for you. Westerners only behave in this manner in Thailand because the Thais do nothing to prevent it. In fact they encourage it. A case in point is Hadrin. There you will see people rooting at the steps of cactus bar. If you did this in Australia, you'd be arrested instantly... but not here. Because there is an aire of anything goes, anything does indeed generally go. This is the Thais fault for allowing it. I get a bit annoyed when I hear Thais being judgemental of the farang idiots at the FMP... if you don't like their behaviour, don't let them do it... the laws are in place to stop indecency, and public nudity,,, but no, it's all ok here. They can't do it at home, so if they are told not to do it here, they are sure to understand. BUT NO, they allow it , they encourage it, and then it makes the whole place slovenly, dangerous, bawdy and ugly

They are not responsible for there actions, unless their actions are illegal... which they usually are, public indecency, nudity lewd behaviour willful damage etc, and then it is their duty to arrest them.... Do you not think that 2 raped and dead people on a public well touristed beach does not rate "tantrum" status? I think you should get out more.

There are beaches in Spain where on a dark night you can fall over teenage English girls rooting on the beach with Spanish waiters after a night of cheap booze in the discotheques. My Thai wife would think that was disgusting but, personally I couldn't care less, as long as they do it out of sight of the main drag and no one gets hurt, unintentionally pregnant or diseased as a result. It's all part of growing up.

If you've never had sex on a beach with a beautiful stranger you met on holiday, you've never lived.

i loved this:

Schoolchildren will be trained to act as ambassadors of patriotic spirit, Mr. Winai said. He gave the hypothetical example of students reprimanding adults who fail to stand at attention during the national anthem, which is played on radio stations and on public broadcast systems at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily.

“The students might go and ask, ‘Why aren’t you standing straight when the national anthem is played?’ ” he said.

The junta has issued a list of 12 values for the country, including gratitude toward parents, discipline, morality and the maintaining of “physical and mental strength against greed.” Large banners bearing the list are being posted at schools nationwide.

I understand what you mean when you say you "love" it (I hope!), but to be quite honest it all just makes me want to weep.

I think this is great too. Instead of sniffing glue and impregnating each other at the age of 13, they can carry around their little ethics books and denounce their recidivist parents like Mao's red guards, after they have expressed gratitude to them. Instead of tablets millions of the ethics books and sets of dumbbells will be sent to rural schools to allow the kids to develop and maintain the mental and physical strength to ward off greed which along with corruption are the true values of the country.

He is lucky they just deleted him instead saying he was PM from 2000 to 2006 and was the most corrupt PM the country ever had, culminating in his conviction for abuse of power in 2008 and the confiscation of B46 billion of his ill gotten gains (why not all?) by the Supreme Court for Political Office Holders.

I imagine there was no rape involved, sex yes, but between the dead couple. Jealous boyfriend finds them and goes berserk. And yes, he is quite likely to have packed his clothes in a hurry that night and not noticed the blood and yes his prints will be easily recoverable from the hoe and yes, if the DNA matches, he's away for a long time.

The police apparently said that he had packed his blood stained trousers in the victim's suitcase after the murder, not his own, and left them there when he fled the scene.

Surely he would have attempted to dispose of them there or, more likely, taken them away with him in an attempt to dispose of them at sea in a bag stuffed with rocks or somewhere on the mainland, far from the scene.

update on thai pbs shows 2 sets of dna found and also 2 seperate weapons used. now clear more than one attacker involved

Thai pbs also came up with this disgusting comment which presumably came from Pol Col Prachum's aspersions about Ware's sexuality, "No semen was found in his anal as being reported by local media."

There is something about blond hair found in Hannah Witheridge's hands saying suggesting that it matched War's blond hair, while David Miller had brown hair. It is hard to know what Thai reporters mean by brown and blond hair, since they only have black hair themselves. But from the photographs, Ware has mousy hair which is slightly fairer than Miller's hair was but neither are really blond or brown. Also Ware's hair is tightly cropped, so it would be hard to get much of a handful of it. The only one with really blond hair was Witheridge herself.

Hopefully the DNA tests will tell us more, although what confidence we should have in Thai police forensic testing of DNA, let alone not compromising the samples, I am not sure.

Yes, I think they would care a lot considering this Chris is a lifelong friend of their son who will in fact be a friend of the family.

So yes, I think at this moment in time they care very much who the actual killer is, and even more so if they are starting to get an inkling that if it was indeed a local, that the police are not going to be motivated to bring their son/daughter's murderer to trial for the sake of tourist revenue.

The case, as presented thus far, against Chris Ware doesn't sound too convincing. The police initially let him go after questioning, as they presumably thought the Burmese were a slam dunk as the murderers, and only came back to him when that theory didn't work out.

Let's look at the circumstantial evidence the police are going on:

1. He left Koh Tao quickly. But we don't know his reason for that. Maybe after such a harrowing experience as losing his friend to a horrible murder and being questioned by some unsubtle Thai police who could hardly speak English he just wanted to get away. Maybe he had already planned to leave then.

2. He has a strange looking horizontal scab on his right hand in one of the pictures. We don't know his explanation for that. Maybe he cut it on a rock while diving. It is too low down to be from a punch thrown by him and injuries sustained defending oneself in fights are more likely on the front of the hands as they are put up to protect the face or body.

3. He was said to have been seen strolling near the scene before or after the murder. But they had all been partying, so going for a stroll by the sea to get some fresh air before going to bed is not unusual.

Some of this sounds not too good but the overall picture so far leaves a lot of room for reasonable doubt. Now let's see what seems against the police theory.

1. The commander of the the Phang Na police came out with a completely half baked a theory that Ware and Miller were homosexual lovers and that Ware murdered Miller and Witheridge in a fit of jealousy. Perhaps Ware is gay but Miller had a girlfriend back home and was presumably attracted to Witheridge. That he was bi and in a relationship with Ware seems a big stretch. Also Ware and Miller were apparently sharing a room with Ware's brother in the hotel. So perhaps the policemen imagined the three of them were having gay sex with occasional breaks to pot pretty young tourist girls that came their way. This theory just seems to be libellous nonsense that should be dealt with via a criminal defamation suit.

2. Miller and Ware were long-term friends from home. Friends do get into drunken arguments but, unless, Ware was paranoid schizophrenic, it is hard to imagine him brutally murdering his best friend and a virtually complete stranger as a result of a drunken argument.

3. A garden hoe would not be most farangs' weapon of choice, although one might pick one up in desperation to defend oneself or in a fit of rage. SE Asians from the countryside are much more likely to have used them to kill animals or seen them used to kill animals. Granted the hoe might just have been left on the beach or a farang might have spotted it in a hotel garden during the daytime and made a mental note of it as a potentially useful piece of equipment. But some one working around there would be more likely to know where to find it and what could be done with it.

I rest my case here, until more evidence comes to light.

I really wish when something like this happens they'd immediately invite the British to rush some of their best people to aid in the investigation.

If nothing else it would show concern, and also prove transparency in the investigation.

Even after they allowed British police to come and investigate the Kirsty Jones murder years after the event, the British police were repeatedly stonewalled and not allowed to do their job properly. It only served to illustrate the lack of transparency in Thai police procedures.

Let's face it, people go into the Thai police to make money and have lots of mia nois without having to work hard. There's a fundamental misalignment of objectives, if you introduce the average British plod into the equation. That's not to say there wouldn't also be a lot more bent British coppers, if the system allowed that to happen.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Thai school history books are so fictional already that it is not going to make any difference to the authenticity.

After the 1991 coup, NPCK member Kaset who was also head of the air force which believed it had a divine right to rape and pillage Thai Airways came out with a famous gaffe after having a group of first class paying Japanese businessmen booted off a flight from Tokyo to make room for him and his entourage who couldn't be bothered to book their seats in advance. He said that he didn't enjoy flying first class on THAI because the air hostesses were all ugly and he would rather fly on other airlines instead, (despite being harder to get free tickets). Within the context of the officers' mess that remark obviously seemed perfectly normal but it echoed around the world being reprinted even in local newspapers in tiny communities and did massive damage to Thailand's face and image.

Please stop now and avoid repeating the mistakes of the 1991 coup leaders.

There's the way the world should be, and the way it really is. To a sexual predator, a bikini on a gorgeous woman looks a lot like a running Mercedes looks to a car thief, or a fistful of money looks to a pickpocket.

The guy's making sense. And I cut him some slack when I think of all the poor translations I've read during my Asian experience..

Well the statement should be, unfortunately "our country is not as safe as advertised, and for that we are sorry".

Maybe that’s exactly what he’s saying. And that it’s time for some collective soul searching.

I don’t understand Thai, and I’ll never understand all the idioms. Just like 99% of Asians won’t understand “Tilting at windmills”- especially if it were a literal translation.

I’m pretty sure there are Thai equivalents of the Don Quixote story, and I would be clueless if an idiom from one of those stories bit me in the butt.

So out of that ignorance on my part, I’m choosing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt…

Before he came up with the bikini line he said that Thais are supposed to tell foreign tourists what times it is safe for them to be outside which must be very reassuring for tourists.

He seems to be losing the plot which is a pity. Maybe time for a minder to give him well written scripts on international topics and shoo the media away when he's read it out, like Yingluck.

Sad to see so many posters here taking the opportunity to bash Thailand from any angle, the police, the news reports, the investigation, perhaps the most remarkable one was where a poster wished that the UK police had been asked to investigate, how arrogant is that!

And for the poster who asked the question, should we demand the same penalty for a farang murderer as a local one, no, the penalty should be increased because the assumed educational levels are higher in the UK than in Thailand, a Brit murderer really would have had every opportunity to learn that what he had doing was wrong.

You obviously have little experience with the BIB. Ever heard of Kirsty Jones? Or several other massively high profile cases where the BIB have been proven to be completely and utterly inept at solving this type of violent crime.

The one about the policeman who shot a toruist in the head, was then bailed, threatened all the witnesses while on bail, got away with it, and was then found guiilty of shooting his wife was also a good and very unfunny one.

They won't have any reasonable forensics or evidence gathering to a western standard. Guaranteed. And so far they are working on the, "she had a lot of boyfriends and were out late so were asking for it" line.

Actually the Pol Sgt Uthai, who murdered Canadian, Leo del Pinto, in Pai, later beat his "wife", an uneducated 18-year old hill tribe girl, to death with a piece of wood, rather than giving her the chance of a quick and painless death by shooting. The commander of the police region supported Uthai's incredulous story that he shot del Pinto in self defence but forensic evidence did not. You are right in saying that del Pinto's girlfriend from home, Carly Ressig, who was also shot by the intoxicated Uthai was blamed to the murder and her own shooting by local media and some farang commentators because she had being seeing a Thai man before del Pinto came out to join her. She was a denounced as a slut who "asked for it" by sleeping around and failing to respect Thai culture. This seems at variance with the the reality that a large section of Thailand's tourist industry is based on prostitution, which is a part of Thai culture and has been for centuries.

Welsh police who came to Thailand to investigate the murder of Kirsty Jones in Chiang Mai several times were persistently stone walled by Thai police. The Welsh officers strongly implied that they believed the murder was committed by a Thai tourist police officer. It was also suggested by Thai police that Jones had consensual sex with her murdered and was therefore to blame.

Now Prayuth seems to be trying to imply that farang women are responsible for crimes committed against them, if they wear bikinis, unless they are ugly. Whatever next?

Sad to see so many posters here taking the opportunity to bash Thailand from any angle, the police, the news reports, the investigation, perhaps the most remarkable one was where a poster wished that the UK police had been asked to investigate, how arrogant is that!

And for the poster who asked the question, should we demand the same penalty for a farang murderer as a local one, no, the penalty should be increased because the assumed educational levels are higher in the UK than in Thailand, a Brit murderer really would have had every opportunity to learn that what he had doing was wrong.

You obviously have little experience with the BIB. Ever heard of Kirsty Jones? Or several other massively high profile cases where the BIB have been proven to be completely and utterly inept at solving this type of violent crime.

The one about the policeman who shot a toruist in the head, was then bailed, threatened all the witnesses while on bail, got away with it, and was then found guiilty of shooting his wife was also a good and very unfunny one.

They won't have any reasonable forensics or evidence gathering to a western standard. Guaranteed. And so far they are working on the, "she had a lot of boyfriends and were out late so were asking for it" line.

Yes, UK police and forensic work is very advanced, the Thai equivalent is less so. But life is a series of trade offs, if people want to live in a society where those things are important, they shouldn't live or visit here. Suggesting that the UK police should be called in to investigate a crime in Thailand shows a deep lack of understanding of Thai/Asian culture, if you are suggesting such a move would be optimal I might be able to agree, if you seriously think it would be a viable and practical option, I cannot.

Actually the Pol Sgt Uthai, who murdered Canadian, Leo del Pinto, in Pai, later beat his "wife", an uneducated 18-year old hill tribe girl, to death with a piece of wood, rather than giving her the chance of a quick and painless death by shooting. The commander of the police region supported Uthai's incredulous story that he shot del Pinto in self defence but forensic evidence did not. You are right in saying that del Pinto's girlfriend from home, Carly Ressig, who was also shot by the intoxicated Uthai was blamed to the murder and her own shooting by local media and some farang commentators because she had being seeing a Thai man before del Pinto came out to join her. She was a denounced as a slug who "asked for it" by sleeping around and failing to respect Thai culture, despite the fact that a large section of Thailand's tourist industry is based on prostitution and has been for decades.

Welsh police who came to Thailand to investigate the murder of Kirsty Jones in Chiang Mai several times were persistently stone walled by Thai police. The Welsh officers strongly implied that they believed the murder was committed by a Thai tourist police officer. It was also suggested by Thai police that Jones had consensual sex with her murdered and was therefore to blame.

Police Misidentify Murdered Britons in CCTV Footage

By Khaosod English

A photo given to the media by police that was mistakenly identified as the 2 British tourists who were murdered later that night on 15 Sept 2014.

BANGKOK — Police say they mistakenly identified two people in a photograph distributed to the media as the British tourists who were murdered on the popular island of Koh Tao on Monday.

Police initially said the still photograph taken from CCTV footage showed David Miller, 24, and Hanner Witheridge, 23, walking hand-in-hand away from a beachside party on Haat Sai Ri Beach on the night of 15 September. The pair was later found naked and beaten to death on the beach at 6:30am on 16 September.

But Pol.Col. Prachum Ruengthong, a commander of Pha Ngan Police who oversees Koh Tao island, said today that the photograph did not in fact depict the two victims.

According to Pol.Col. Prachum, the officers in charge of CCTV investigation "made their own assumption" and misidentified the pair. The police currently have no CCTV footage of the victims, he added.

Police earlier insisted the image showed the two murder victims, following several requests for confirmation by Khaosod English.

"There has been a lot of information [given to the media] through many channels," Pol.Col. Prachum explained. "Each officer gave their own piece of information. From now on, I will be the only person who gives information."

However, Pol.Col. Prachum said the other image given to the media of a man who police say behaved suspiciously near where the bodies were found is still valid. Police are still searching for the man, though the latest reports say two British friends of Mr. Miller are also being considered as possible suspects.

Three male migrant workers from Myanmar were cleared by police yesterday after being detained and interrogated about the incident.

The mis-identified photograph is one of several blunders made by Thai police and media investigating the murder case over the past few days.

Thai police previously gave unsubstantiated and bizarre statements about the murder, such as the claim that one of Mr. Miller's friends was a "gay man" who possibly committed the murder out of jealousy, and the announcement that the island had been “sealed off,” whereas in reality boats were permitted to leave the docks normally.

These claims were widely reported by major Thai media agencies.

Police also made contradictory statements about a British friend of Mr. Miller, who was initially considered a suspect, then released after questioning and declared unrelated to the murder, only to be detained again as a potential suspect this morning.

The bodies of Mr. Miller and Ms. Witheridge arrived in Bangkok yesterday for an autopsy.

Source: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/detail.php?newsid=1410941012

[khaosod]2014-09-17[/khaosod

This was on Yahoo UK early today and everyone, apart from the BIB, seems to have noticed the lady featured wasn't blond.

The Pol. Col. was so correct about each officer and their own piece of information but where was the CONTROL, why was everyone allowed to spout off willy nilly ?

Sorry but a rhetorical question and the BIB wonder why their investigations turn into a cl.......ck !

Straight black hair, very short compared to the farang man, wearing Thai style hot pants. The girl looks rather like a Thai to me - probably a rental.

What a twist. It will be interesting to see if they really have their killer or ae just tryin make a foreigner guilty to save their tourism. Good they were able to track down a single tourist and make an arrest however leaving the island (quickly) does not mean running from the scene of a crime

Sent from my GT-S5310 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Maybe he came to the end of his trip or didn't feel like staying there after the murders. The police were quick to tout evidence of blood stained clothes and smashed iPhones in the Burmese' shack but that now seems to have come to nothing.

Heaven forbid that it should have been a Thai or even a policemen, as is alleged in the unsolved murder of Kirsty Jones.

What a twist. It will be interesting to see if they really have their killer or ae just tryin make a foreigner guilty to save their tourism. Good they were able to track down a single tourist and make an arrest however leaving the island (quickly) does not mean running from the scene of a crime

Sent from my GT-S5310 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

They didn't mention whether he had already planned to leave Koh Tao or whether he cut short his reservation at the hotel. He could also have felt he didn't want to stay in that place after a horrible murder had been committed. The police were quick to cite evidence of blood stained clothes and smashed iPhones against the Burmese but that came to nothing.

Heaven forbid that it could have been a Thai citizen. Maybe even a policeman, as is alleged in the still unsolved murder of Kirsty Jones in Chiang Mai.

One of Millers friends has been detained. Police believe it could possibly be a migrant worker. Why do Thais never want to admit responsibility. How could they possibly know that the cctv footage is a migrant worker?

There are at least 2 million unregistered migrant workers in Thailand who are able to travel and work freely as a result of the corruption of police and other government officials and the readiness of Thai business owners to break the law by employing them and paying bribes. Since they are illegal, they are often exploited and forced to work in desperate conditions without healthcare or other basic necessities. A tiny minority resort to crimes of violence and Thais are usually the victims, along with other migrants.

I am not blaming this terrible tragedy on migrant workers, just pointing out the dangers to society presented by 3% of the population being exploited undocumented aliens - a situation created by a succession of greedy and corrupt Thai governments and senior civil servants with the "my turn to eat now" attitude. The NCPO thought they could do a military quick fix, failed and gave up. Foreign embassies should highlight the dangers of travelling to a country with an underclass of illegal "slave" workers as well as discourage their consumers from buying the products of exploited workers.

The widespread corruption in the implementation of the project was the last straw - and no matter how Yingluck tried to distance herself from the fraudulent practices, it's hard to see how she can avoid being held responsible for such a major political debacle on a national scale.

She should be held responsible, the problem is that she would be the first. Breaking new ground is always more difficult.

The foreign pro-Thaksinites argue that these are completely trumped up charges. The rice scheme was a PT policy that the electorate voted for and therefore neither Yingluck nor anyone else can be held accountable. I have had bitter discussions with people who argue this line.

'... the bargain resulted in the department saving about Bt14 million for the state ...' I wonder if they would spout the same kind of self-satisfied nonsense if the cost were coming out of their own pockets. But no doubt they are looking to be congratulated.

In 18 months time there will be a new PM who will spend another fortune doing up Government House, while paying lip service to the sufficiency economy.