Southern police chief: Enough evidence in British tourists' murder case to make arrest now

[MJP]

ChiangraiTony's quite right. Keep the powder dry for a day or so.

[JenniferSG]

Relax everyone. They don't make arrests until all the DNA, etc are examined. In the meantime, the suspects are being held by the police. So many of you are really uneducated people on this board. The police are doing well. They want the case to be solid. In fact, they probably want confessions from the guys who did this. The confessions are normally easy to get in these cases in Thailand. You think torture forget that.

All they need to do is to explain DNA and other forensic evidence. Most people dont even know about DNA and what it can do and certainly many Thais isolated on a little island working at labor type of jobs probably dont scan the internet for the latest and greatest. They probably dont even know many cameras are around them.

Once the guilty realize they have no chance they confess for a promise of a less sentence maybe.

Cross contamination allegations are the best defense against DNA. Of course the guy's DNA will be at the crime scene - he is seen in video and photos standing next to one of the bodies with the police! The police let him contaminate the crime scene - now any lawyer worth his salt will argue that his DNA is of course at the crime scene, since he's standing there barefoot, and that the cops cross contaminated by touching one thing then another, moving dna about to the extent that no sample is unadulterated.

[balo]

Looks like a few of us may eat humble pie (like me)

looks like the police may have found the correct murderers / not stitched anybody up etc

For that i apologise for doubting them and hope this is the future now

The murders have created world wide attention which has helped to focus their attention.

My UK ex-gf worked as a volunteer teacher on KT around 7/8 years ago and was amazed to be told the owner of the largest resort on the island was shot and murdered by local mafia, just before she arrived. She said it was the most idyllic place she had ever worked and couldn't believe the government would tolerate serious crime.

Koh Tao used to be where convicts were taken.

I guess their descendants are still around with the same mentality.

Mr Ban, the deceased owner of Ban's diving, one of the original guys who recognised the potential of the island, was allegedly killed as he wanted to improve the infrastructure, which would have meant a couple of guys would lost their source of income. Must be almost twenty years ago now.

I don't think his killer was ever brought to justice either.

Maybe the killer is from the same family, maybe theybhave killed before and got away with it.

[NeverSure]

Don't believe everything you read. Things being reported keep changing very quickly. There is a LOT of false information that is being released by the media. Within the next week just look at how much information that gets reported is inaccurate.

Yes, at the start of the investigations maybe, but we're 9-10 days into this case now, the police have recovered a lot of evidence, I don't see there being too many twists and turns left in this one now.

The accused disappear next.

The DNA is too contaminated to trace it to just one person.

</tinfoil hat>

[monk213]

Relax everyone. They don't make arrests until all the DNA, etc are examined. In the meantime, the suspects are being held by the police. So many of you are really uneducated people on this board. The police are doing well. They want the case to be solid. In fact, they probably want confessions from the guys who did this. The confessions are normally easy to get in these cases in Thailand. You think torture forget that.

All they need to do is to explain DNA and other forensic evidence. Most people dont even know about DNA and what it can do and certainly many Thais isolated on a little island working at labor type of jobs probably dont scan the internet for the latest and greatest. They probably dont even know many cameras are around them.

Once the guilty realize they have no chance they confess for a promise of a less sentence maybe.

Cross contamination allegations are the best defense against DNA. Of course the guy's DNA will be at the crime scene - he is seen in video and photos standing next to one of the bodies with the police! The police let him contaminate the crime scene - now any lawyer worth his salt will argue that his DNA is of course at the crime scene, since he's standing there barefoot, and that the cops cross contaminated by touching one thing then another, moving dna about to the extent that no sample is unadulterated.

That is if it even gets to court. If the police feel they have their man on this one, well one of the two, that interrogation is not going to be pretty to say the least. All in good time

[JoeLing]

I agree with that. do you think of Koh Tao as extremely dangerous and not a place one should visit?

No, but when you go to the rock, you should be very much aware about things are run there. It's not as many other places in this country. Koh Tao is one of the places where families are running the show (mafia), where many other places it's "another organization".

But anywhere in this country, you have to be careful to get into conflicts with the locals, and specially at Koh Tao where the chance are that the conflict would be with member of "the family".

Edit: However, i rather avoid that place, because i know going there, you cannot avoid supporting such family, because they got their fingers into more or less everything. I would rather go and support "another organization" who might be corrupted too, but not quite as nasty.

"Koh Tao is one of the places where families are running the show (mafia), where many other places it's "another organization".

Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to the difference between the "mafia" running the show on Koh Tao and the "mafias" running the shows on Koh Phangan, Koh Samui, Phuket, Pattaya etc or are they "another organization"?.

Are these folks in competition or is there happy mutual co-operation between them when it comes to handling the 'tourists'? I am sure the godfather on Koh Tao talks to the godfather on Samui or is that not the way things work down in The Paradise Islands?

Somehow, I don't think there's a big enough carpet down there under which to sweep this story.

Don't know about Phuket, Pattaya or Samui but I'm convinced, just as the Chief of police said,

if there would be mafia on the island, the police would know.

Sure the local families would not allow outside mafia to interfere in their lucrative businesses.

Someone even suggested, this islands are lawless places but far from it, there are laws, just

not the same as on the mainland. Suppose, as long as there was just one boat a day and the

island community lived of coconuts and fishing, that was no problem.

But times have changed, today, the majority of the island population moved here from outside.

Be it Thais from the mainland, Burmese or foreigners and with it came money, greed, police

and crime, all profiting from this life away from authority.

So hopefully, this General from the north has no consideration for some islanders in the south

and their politics. Sure would be at the time, someone sends a big warning shot to wake up

some superior families who still believe: "What's happen on the island, stays on the island".

Edited September 23, 2014 by JoeLing

[LanceGringo]

Relax everyone. They don't make arrests until all the DNA, etc are examined. In the meantime, the suspects are being held by the police. So many of you are really uneducated people on this board. The police are doing well. They want the case to be solid. In fact, they probably want confessions from the guys who did this. The confessions are normally easy to get in these cases in Thailand. You think torture forget that.

All they need to do is to explain DNA and other forensic evidence. Most people dont even know about DNA and what it can do and certainly many Thais isolated on a little island working at labor type of jobs probably dont scan the internet for the latest and greatest. They probably dont even know many cameras are around them.

Once the guilty realize they have no chance they confess for a promise of a less sentence maybe.

Cross contamination allegations are the best defense against DNA. Of course the guy's DNA will be at the crime scene - he is seen in video and photos standing next to one of the bodies with the police! The police let him contaminate the crime scene - now any lawyer worth his salt will argue that his DNA is of course at the crime scene, since he's standing there barefoot, and that the cops cross contaminated by touching one thing then another, moving dna about to the extent that no sample is unadulterated.

How can his DNA be at the crime scene just by being stood there?? - what was he doing masturbating/bleeding etc whilst he was stood chatting to the police???

[foxteen]

Someone else thinking this story may take another twist still?

Why did they find David naked if he didn't have sex with Hannah?

I believe they arranged the murder scene after the heinous crime. In that case, I wouldn't be surprised if the DNA will not match either, but I believe the police is holding back something vital, they have additional evidence.

Yeah very strange .the police must holding something back..not make senses in what they they saying

[Lukecan]

Relax everyone. They don't make arrests until all the DNA, etc are examined. In the meantime, the suspects are being held by the police. So many of you are really uneducated people on this board. The police are doing well. They want the case to be solid. In fact, they probably want confessions from the guys who did this. The confessions are normally easy to get in these cases in Thailand. You think torture forget that.

All they need to do is to explain DNA and other forensic evidence. Most people dont even know about DNA and what it can do and certainly many Thais isolated on a little island working at labor type of jobs probably dont scan the internet for the latest and greatest. They probably dont even know many cameras are around them.

Once the guilty realize they have no chance they confess for a promise of a less sentence maybe.

Cross contamination allegations are the best defense against DNA. Of course the guy's DNA will be at the crime scene - he is seen in video and photos standing next to one of the bodies with the police! The police let him contaminate the crime scene - now any lawyer worth his salt will argue that his DNA is of course at the crime scene, since he's standing there barefoot, and that the cops cross contaminated by touching one thing then another, moving dna about to the extent that no sample is unadulterated.

What about the semen retrieved from the body? How will that be contaminated without rape.

[jaywalker]

and expressed confidence they will be arrested and charged within this week, he added.

Why not today??

Wouldn't want them to get the wind up and abscond.

Yes, exactly - the whole point is you just do it, you don't make vacuous pronouncements of intent.

Thailand does so many things so very well, sadly policing and the application of the rule of law are not amongst them.

Now there's a challenging statement. What does Thailand do well.

Jet ski scams.

[JenniferSG]

Relax everyone. They don't make arrests until all the DNA, etc are examined. In the meantime, the suspects are being held by the police. So many of you are really uneducated people on this board. The police are doing well. They want the case to be solid. In fact, they probably want confessions from the guys who did this. The confessions are normally easy to get in these cases in Thailand. You think torture forget that.

All they need to do is to explain DNA and other forensic evidence. Most people dont even know about DNA and what it can do and certainly many Thais isolated on a little island working at labor type of jobs probably dont scan the internet for the latest and greatest. They probably dont even know many cameras are around them.

Once the guilty realize they have no chance they confess for a promise of a less sentence maybe.

Cross contamination allegations are the best defense against DNA. Of course the guy's DNA will be at the crime scene - he is seen in video and photos standing next to one of the bodies with the police! The police let him contaminate the crime scene - now any lawyer worth his salt will argue that his DNA is of course at the crime scene, since he's standing there barefoot, and that the cops cross contaminated by touching one thing then another, moving dna about to the extent that no sample is unadulterated.

What about the semen retrieved from the body? How will that be contaminated without rape.

Easily. By allowing the samples to touch, not changing your gloves between handling samples, putting samples down on the surface where another sample has been, etc. Letting the guy stand there, over the naked body, at the crime scene placed his DNA there. Now all any lawyer has to do is argue that the sampling or handling of the DNA later was cross contaminated. It ruins any viable DNA evidence. I work with AFIS techs who take felon DNA regularly as part of the requirement in the U.S. that felons upon conviction give up their DNA. Not changing your gloves immediately invalidates any sample. In this case, the guy is allowed to stand at the murder scene over a body? What the heck kind of police work is that. A lawyer can now say "yeah, his DNA went from the sand to the body, then the cops not changing their gloves moved it all over the body." Heck, he could say he shook hands with someone gloved at the scene. The potential for contamination is enormous. I don't know what Thailand's reasonable doubt standard is, but this sort of stuff has ruined high profile murder cases in the U.S. and Europe, some quite recently.

[Lozza]

So I take it, the guy in custody is a mongoloid and man on the run a different species of asian heritage.

[englishoak]

Guy in the picture with brother suspect that sean took ...... the one on the right of the picture is the brothers m8 and guess what ? hes .......... police

[Norvid]

It looks to me like the military government is doing all it can to clean-up corrupted Thailand and open doors for next possibly better government that all previous ones. Maybe it should last longer? Clean-ups are never easy and fast.

[Lozza]

Guy in the picture with brother suspect that sean took ...... the one on the right of the picture is the brothers m8 and guess what ? hes .......... police

he doesn't look like one. My first impression was he looked like a thug. I now believe Sean's story with a touch of bravado, it appears he was being set up.

Is there a doctor onboard that can cyber me a valium, you couldn't make this up if you tried.

Has a producer or author put their hand up for this scoop.

[englishoak]

Guy in the picture with brother suspect that sean took ...... the one on the right of the picture is the brothers m8 and guess what ? hes .......... police

he doesn't look like one. My first impression was he looked like a thug. I now believe Sean's story with a touch of bravado, it appears he was being set up.

Is there a doctor onboard that can cyber me a valium, you couldn't make this up if you tried.

Has a producer or author put their hand up for this scoop.

Island police/thug/mafia same thing.

the television news interview with the brother given to thai media, Thairath online while answering questions he said his friend with him was police.

so he scooped himself. Right from the horses mouth

Edited September 23, 2014 by englishoak

[jacko45k]

Once the guilty realize they have no chance they confess for a promise of a less sentence maybe.

No maybe about it. The sentence is always less in the case of a confession outside of a death sentence.

This is good news, although early to say the matter is resolved.

Another example of Thai males from privileged origins being arrogant and scofflaws.

I would like to hear in the future that the guilty persons are put away for a very long time,far from home, and afforded no special treatment.....

[me313]

It is high time that fair warnings are issued about mafia hotspots so we can avoid them

Thailand has many great places so why go to the mafia ganglands - Samui, Koh Tao, Pattaya, and Phuket

Go elsewhere like Koh Kut, Hua Hin, CM and thousands of other great places

Why (drugs?) do so many tourists ignore the hundreds of wonderful towns and go to the tourist traps of smiling mafias

normally i might be pessimist but I feel there is going to be a big arrest and parade and official recreation this time

the smell of rare justice is in the air tonight

The village headman knows more and knows where his brother is - can someone supply the headmans name and his brothers name and picture so that he does not escape

I live in Phuket and I am a gang stalking target, and let me tell you that it's not "mafia" it's the entire population of people who are corrupt. I can rarely find any person here who doesn't bow down to what the real mafia out of Europe tells them to do, and the real mafia are similarly ordinary citizens part of a corrupt network. I think it's time people have to stop blaming corrupt leaders and corrupt police for the corruption that runs rampant on every level of society. It's worst with the tourist coming here to get cheap good deals, as they vent their lack of powerlessness on the locals, demanding to be served, politely or otherwise so. They are gracious when they get their behinds kisses,, but what I'm referring to is the essence of this corruption which goes far deeper and wider than mere "mafia" in certain spots like Phuket. I suggest people read gang stalking web pages to understand the full extent of how corrupt human beings have become, in networks driven by greed and supported by technology, all over the world. I have serious doubts whether any other location in Thailand is less "mafia" infested than Phuket. I write this openly because it's time for people to begin to understand what is hidden under so many pretenses and lies. It's always the victim who gets blamed for crimes, in the case of the British couple it's obvious that they were victims of crimes, but so often on this same forum where women get raped the readers say that the victim was letting it happen by allowing people to escort them around. When I talk about how people operate on a global level, and how corrupt Thailand is and when I see the white foreigners from Europe and America I see the same corruption. Phuket is just a more sleazy area where a bunch of really corrupt people have taken everything over, with the conformist Thais following orders. It's no more a mafia place than anywhere else in the world.

[traviss]

http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/what-the-murder-of-two-british-tourists-tells-us-about-thailand%E2%80%99s-dark-side

[Strangebrew]

Now My honorable PM general show them who you are Fire all the police there and hire new ones to replace those that are corrupt.

[MJP]

Just going back to the title of the thread now . . . ummmm . . . ???

[metisdead]

Once again, this is an English language forum, English language is the only acceptable language except for the Thai language forum where Thai language is allowed. With that in mind, if you're going to post links to news sources, let's use English language sites only for any news updates. Posts containing links to Thai and foreign language sites have been removed as well as the replies.

And again, do not post content or link to Bangkok Post or Phuket Wan.

[kannot]

I have been following this with great interest for the last week , is anyone able to confirm that the man on the left of SM 's 7/11 picture

is the same man seen hanging around with the police at the crime scene on day one ?

And , is there any truth in the statement that two men in SM's 7/11 picture refused to be DNA tested .

Refusing a DNA test doesn't indicate guilt.

Would you want the bib to have a sample of your dna?

if it proved i was innocent yes, but I would demand i could get my own sample tested privately to be sure they matched

[Tanlic]

You've got absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

The surprise is the arrests, not who did it.

The police probably did knew who did it days ago have been buying time by throwing up scapegoats and other smoke and mirrors in the hope of finding a way out for the son and brother of the influential figure.

Finally someone even more influential realised the damage this was doing to Thailand (thanks to international media) and said 'enough is enough'.

Most of the police investigating are from outwith the area these crimes were committed.

The minute police from another division eg Lumpini in Bangkok arrive on the scene no matter who you think you know your protection just flew out the window and the case need not be anywhere as hideous or serious as this one.

No thai policeman would stick his neck out for someone who commits crimes like these and you are talking complete nonsense.

==================================================

Actually he's pretty much on the money. You think other divisions don't stick together? wrong. If it's in the interest of Thailand anything can happen, there are no rules. The level of corruption in Asian countries is is hard for most ppl to comprehend. Common sense doesn't play a part in it.

If they were so competent it would of been solved last week.

Would they?

Read what the man said "

"Earlier investigation did not make headway as the cooperation and coordination among authorities were not much with only the investigation police doing their work and no meeting with each other.

But now he said that they will sit down together to discuss and to work in the same direction."

These people may have had the local's in their pocket but as I said when "Mr Big" gets involved your local protection aint worth a bucket of manure.

Of course there is corruption in Thailand, There's police corruption is in every country in the world, but unless you are paying every top cop, top politician and his brother then you are not untouchable as these animals, if guilty, will find out when executed or jailed for life.

"

Edited September 23, 2014 by Tanlic

[slygeeza]

Of course, no one has said we want them dead. But we can't change it. We can only make sure they are not forgotten, and that their memory is kept alive.

And I don't think they would have wanted the entire world to stop partying because of this, and I didn't know them, but I have read a lot of tributes

to them from their friends.

As sad as it is - life goes on.

*Troll alert*

How is this trolling in any way? Because you are of a different opinion?

pretty clear who the troll is, just ignore him/her

[ggt]

Dang...Southern Police Chief seems to be taking this murder seriously...now if we can only treat ALL the murders this way...

[hhgz]

Most of the posters have chosen to parse every sentence, every phrase, every word of the authorities. The problem began much earlier. Both of the suspects had been detained, refused to provide a DNA sample, and then released. This could have been resolved a long time ago.

[Greg Nixon]

When the police finally arrest two suspects they are not European, they are not migrant workers but are Thai but it must have been the Mafia that made them do it. Ha Ha Ha. Ethnocentrism at its finest. When it is Thais that are guilty blame it on everyone else first. Maybe it will stick.

[maoro]

The southern police chief also assured the public that there was no arrest of scapegoats in this murder case as it now is a focal attention of the world.

So if not the focal attention of the world then???????????????

[Sandra Rae]

The one in custody is the guy they have on the video that night, he was apparently wearing the dead guys light coloured shorts, having left his own at the crime scene.