Suspects in Koh Tao backpacker murders retract confessions, says official

[laobali]

With some notable exceptions, Thai police are generally poorly educated and not very bright but their careers start with paying bribes to pass the police entrance exams. Those who get promoted to regional commands continue this trend but must also be aggressive and hungry with proven track records of passing enough money up the pyramids. They have to pay for plum jobs, followed by monthly fixed retainers. Jobs in tourist resorts are especially lucrative and command a premium. It is said that the Pattaya police chief job is worth B20 million a month in gross income before payment of the fixed retainer, so you can imagine how much the upfront premium might be for that job. Koh Tao and Koh Phangnan, which supervises Koh Tao, are not in the league of Pattaya, Phuket and Samui but they must also be lucrative posts. In addition to the daily crime busting work seen by the public police have responsibility to supervise a number of important businesses in partnership with local mafias, including protection rackets, illegal aliens, taxi scams smuggling of licquor, tobacco and oil, drug distribution, illegal lotteries and other forms of gambling, forest reserve encroachment, distribution of illegal cut wood etc etc.

Can you wonder that they are cosy with local mafias and resent being forced to do regular police work along with the intrusion of social media in their perfect little world?

It must be quite stressful paying all that money up front and passing bribes up the pyramid in the hope of getting into profit one day. They can't all end up at the top of the dung pile either, so spare a thought for those poor police recruits with their futures ahead of them!

[StealthEnergiser]

It is very possible people may have a spent a lot of time changing the crime scene before reporting the crime and these people may have had so call experts in forensic assistance.

[Toscano]

I hope that the Thai police and public take no notice of the comments posted on this and other sites .

I too have questioned why a team of police forensic experts hasn't been appointed to find the culprits of this crime .

I guess the answer is that Thailand doesn't have an expert forensic team .

I am of the opinion that despite all , the police have found the right guys . However young and innocent they look , there is no knowing what drink and perhaps Ya Ba may affected them .

If public opinion as read in Thaivisa blogs is to go by , we are reaching the point of freeing the young men , starting the search from scratch again , or just dropping the case altogether . Perhaps the DNA from sperm could be tested by an independent laboratory or by British experts , as the victims were British .

[kblaze]

What and who are you hiding Mr General?

What the hell does this have to do with the General? Does David Cameron conduct murder investigations in the UK? The lengths some of you will go to make a political point of a tragic murder disgust me.

He put himself in the conflict when he opened his mouth on the case. Don't you remember bikini-gate?

[anon467367354]

GOOD!

No reason now why an innocent person would commit suicide.

If something does happen to them then what's left of Thailand's image

is toast!

[jacky54]

. A lot of expats packing up and leaving is not going to stop the corruption here.

It's a question of conscience and how much value you put on morality. No it will not stop corruption but at least those leaving will no longer be part of this festering corrupt unjust system with a smile on it's face.

[Rykbanlor]

If they are indeed guilty they may walk free given the balls up. And if they are in fact innocent, they could get hanged. Eitherway its a SNAFU.

I know what you mean but I do reckon if these kids had actually done it the Police would probably have appeared a little more competent and produced some strong compelling evidence.

[Dogmatix]

Mr Banana Pancake the Rohingya 'interpreter' who participated in the beating and confessions in action from the Irrawaddy FB page.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=853663321344488

At 4:00 Mr Pancake asserts that that Wyn started off the killing spree by hitting David over the hit with a large wine bottle. So that's another murder weapon. He also says Hannah and David were having sex, in spite of no DNA evidence supporting that theory.

He speaks Thai with a heavy Indian accent. I wonder what his Burmese sounds like and how good is written Thai was to read back and translate the Thai confessions they were forced to sign. I also wonder what his work permit and visa look like, since Rohingya's are stateless.

I like how they report at the end that a some undercover police officers walked up to them as they were doing the interview and " listened " in. You can see the moment the police officer may have arrived when you see the interpreter's face light up like a Xmas tree at the 3 minute mark.

He has a very shifty look about him as he lies and embroiders. No way he could pass a polygraph test. I am surprised he is giving interviews that must be embarrassing for the police. I am imagine they will soon find a new pancake man and deport him as an illegal immigrant before he causes any more embarrassment.

[Number 3]

The BIB continue to shame the nation. The R should certainly be removed from the RTP

If what is in post 102 is correct then it is the Junta who are doing the cover up.

This is news to you ?

[ATF]

It's now a juggernaut running out of control. Someone is going down big time but who?

Police reputation is in absolute ruins.

Gen P has given the Cops enough rope to hang themselves which they have done.

What's going to come now?

[laobali]

This is just not egg on RTP face, it's the whole (deleted) Thai omelette. What a huge loss of face for them.

Yes and they chose to lose face on the biggest stage of them all....it's called the World. Amazing really amazing.

The only reason 'they' (TAT specifically, who came up with 'Amazing Thailand' campaign in 1998) would be concerned with what the rest of the world thinks is because that's where tourists come from.

[wabothai]

More amazing every day.

[McQwaid]

Why would a killer rapist wear a condom?

[Number 3]

It's now a juggernaut running out of control. Someone is going down big time but who?

Police reputation is in absolute ruins.

Gen P has given the Cops enough rope to hang themselves which they have done.

What's going to come now?

The rope will be mysteriously found in the Burmese lads cell sometime over the next few days.

No doubt coppers will hold a press conference prior

It is their duty to keep the public informed no ?

[xenophon]

Peering into the future, I see .... two hazy figures .... shot "while trying to escape". Case closed. Well done everybody!

[Dogmatix]

I hope that the Thai police and public take no notice of the comments posted on this and other sites .

I too have questioned why a team of police forensic experts hasn't been appointed to find the culprits of this crime .

I guess the answer is that Thailand doesn't have an expert forensic team .

I am of the opinion that despite all , the police have found the right guys . However young and innocent they look , there is no knowing what drink and perhaps Ya Ba may affected them .

If public opinion as read in Thaivisa blogs is to go by , we are reaching the point of freeing the young men , starting the search from scratch again , or just dropping the case altogether . Perhaps the DNA from sperm could be tested by an independent laboratory or by British experts , as the victims were British .

So what's happened to the wine bottle they told the pancake dude they used on David? If it broke, as would almost certainly have been the case, they wouldn't have been able to pick up all the pieces.

If they were having sex while attacked, why is there no forensic evidence of that? Why was the condom found on the beach and not still on his body or washed off in the sea after he was dragged there.

If you were smashed over the head with a bottle while having sex on the beach, would you quickly remove the condom and deposit it on the beach before trying to defend yourself against the attackers?

[Dogmatix]

It's now a juggernaut running out of control. Someone is going down big time but who?

Police reputation is in absolute ruins.

Gen P has given the Cops enough rope to hang themselves which they have done.

What's going to come now?

The rope will be mysteriously found in the Burmese lads cell sometime over the next few days.

No doubt coppers will hold a press conference prior

It is their duty to keep the public informed no ?

That's what the chief screw has just done. Thai prison cells are overflowing with prisoners who have to sleep on their sides because there is no room lie down flat. There have been reports of prisoners found hanged in the morning and all the prisoners swore blind they slept soundly and didn't see or hear anything while their colleagues were being murdered committing suicide.

[SlyouThai]

Does somebody knows WHY we dont hear nothing from Sean MacAnna ? from what i saw he wrote on his facebook that he was in danger because of mafia and " AC bar owner did it ".

If what he wrote was really from him , why the hell this guy isnt talking , he is not in thailand anymore. Why UK police doesnt interview him ???

[freedom4life]

Koh Tao Suspects' Alleged Recantation 'Normal,' Police Officer Says

But the confessions were one of the 5 key points that the police chief said made him confident of the suspects' guilt. One of the others was the police eye witness who was also tortured and has now also recanted.

That leaves you with: the phone which police seem to have forgotten was reported found intact before it was found smashed up; the CCTV footage which has had 40 minutes deleted from it; and the DNA testing which the two suspects passed the first time they were tested before their second tests came back positive in only 24 hours which is impossible. Good luck with that one.

The summary with most now is that it is a cover-up to protect someone(s) they don't seem to want to touch.Well guess what RTP, you will no longer have a choice but to arrest the real culprit(s) and many have an idea who at least one of them is and so do the RTP. Please do not kill the suspects that are now in custody and make it look like suicide. It seems to be the modus operandi with corruption these days (eg. body-count surrounding Clinton-Whitewater scandal as a big example)

[JLCrab]

I have no idea whether those in custody did it or not. But I think of the crash of the Concorde at de Gaulle Airport in 2000. I was watching the TV news and in the early reports they suggested: You know who flies on the Concorde -- Henry Kissinger, Madonna, Mick Jagger, etc.

I remember noting that the American TV news had a look of disappointment when they realized it was a group of German dentists who had chartered the flight so they could make a cruise connection in NYC.

If this turns out NOT to be a high level conspiracy involving bribes and blackmail and other perverse qualities it seems there will be a whole bunch who will be disappointed.

[Camilo Diaz]

Are you really surprise by all the revelations and allegations? You shouldn't be. Are you really that enraged by all that has gone on which again only reinforces the belief that anyone that is not Thai is considered nothing short of cattle? You shouldn't be.

What you should be is righteous enough to do what is required.... LEAVE Thailand and leave now. I walked out after the second day and I won't return until this and other pressing issues are fixed. It's time the expat community did more than sitting on a bar stool moaning about the situation.

IMHO - all those who remain only fuel the continuation of the abuse and are in fact no better than the Thai authorities who continue abusing people's human rights for their own nationalistic agenda.

some of us have jobs and family here... and I am sure not all Thais are like this murders, there are bad ppl and good ppl everywhere.

[Commerce]

Are you really surprise by all the revelations and allegations? You shouldn't be. Are you really that enraged by all that has gone on which again only reinforces the belief that anyone that is not Thai is considered nothing short of cattle? You shouldn't be.

What you should be is righteous enough to do what is required.... LEAVE Thailand and leave now. I walked out after the second day and I won't return until this and other pressing issues are fixed. It's time the expat community did more than sitting on a bar stool moaning about the situation.

IMHO - all those who remain only fuel the continuation of the abuse and are in fact no better than the Thai authorities who continue abusing people's human rights for their own nationalistic agenda.

Puff! Hope you locked your door before you left, and said goodbye to your piece.

Rhetoric: I walked out and won't return until......... bwahahahaha....

Either you're going, gone, or trolling from the bar again.

Suffinator, your posts are so delightfully pathetic, you suffocate me.

[Commerce]

Are you really surprise by all the revelations and allegations? You shouldn't be. Are you really that enraged by all that has gone on which again only reinforces the belief that anyone that is not Thai is considered nothing short of cattle? You shouldn't be.

What you should be is righteous enough to do what is required.... LEAVE Thailand and leave now. I walked out after the second day and I won't return until this and other pressing issues are fixed. It's time the expat community did more than sitting on a bar stool moaning about the situation.

IMHO - all those who remain only fuel the continuation of the abuse and are in fact no better than the Thai authorities who continue abusing people's human rights for their own nationalistic agenda.

some of us have jobs and family here... and I am sure not all Thais are like this murders, there are bad ppl and good ppl everywhere.

I think you should read back.

[Oziex1]

No surprise there.

Well its looking more likely the killers could still be out there, while the BIB are deciding what to do next,

May I suggest the possibility this may not be such a unique event as first portrayed, others have been raped and even killed on KT recently

Time to start digging and looking for any other deaths, suicides, drownings rapes or serious beatings etc on Koh Tao and surrounding Islands over the years.

Watch the reports of rapes over this months full moon party or anything else of late like people winding up dead,

I reckon its worth looking into, a pattern may emerge.

One of my first posts on this was eventually a hard hitting investigative journalist or two will get onto the story, I'm sure there on their way now.

The world wants the truth about Thailand and it will be delivered,

[freedom4life]

"In many other cases, suspects also recant their confessions during trial. It's normal," Pol.Col. Prachum said.

Good on you. Just keep making ignorant and arrogant statements like this. The police must have foot-in-mouth disease or something

[kblaze]

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I am very surprised that Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan now saying this before rope in at the crime scene.

"Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, head of Thailand’s forensic science institute, reportedly asked why an expert was not used to collect samples following the murders and why qualified experts seemed not to have been involved in the case, which involved police are were also relying on DNA evidence."

She is award winning forensic scientist, she resolved many murder cases in Thailand, should have volunteered to investigate the case to save the Thai's reputation. Probably someone don't want her to be investigating the case ? This raises million questions. Now I would be surprised if they can prove the right culprit ??? or case is now compromised after two guys commit suicide after the Thai police predictions now ?? It is time for Interpol to take this case by asking a report through International Human Rights commission.

The problem is that the police hate her because she has often contradicted their bumbling efforts to "solve crimes." She has been sidelined for years when she should be running the police forensics teams. CSI Thailand

She has recently been reinstated as D-G of the Central Institute of Forensic Science. That is part of the Justice Ministry, not the police. The police have their own central forensic science unit in Bangkok and call on a very small number pathologists working in government hospitals on a case by case basis. They are not obliged to call in the CIFS. It is like the DSI which is also part of the Justice Ministry which can be called in by police, if they can't handle a case or think they have a conflict, or can be ordered in by the PM or a DPM.

Obviously none of those things happened in this case for obvious reasons. However, Pornthip is not complaining that police didn't call her dept, although that would have been a good idea. She is complaining that they didn't even follow their own basic procedure by calling in the nearest pathologist from the government hospital in Surat Thani and not sealing off the crime scene, allowing tourists and local mobsters to prod around at the evidence. The police just collected evidence themselves as they saw fit. Hence the lack of finger prints, DNA disappeared from the inside of the condom etc etc.

I met her some years ago during Thaksin's war on drugs. She described how police disturbed corpses and put guns and bags of drugs in their hands and how police pathologists in the provinces sign crime scene reports prepared by police the next day without having to get out of bed or ever visiting the scene. She is a cancer survivor and a very courageous woman. She says she has no doubt she would have been murdered at that time, if she was a man.

She's not 100% clean.

She openly supports the Gt-200 scam that could well be responsible for numerous Thai solider injuries/deaths in the South

[JoeLing]

This case will provide a realisation of sorts -

Thousands are cancelling as we speak-

Really. Who is cancelling? Most people are not following this case that closely

Can't say if they are thousands cancelling as we speak BUT

During last years October and November Full Moon Party days I had 286 beds/nights

booked and paid for. Not a single cancellation or "no shows".

For the first November week in 2013 I had an occupancy rate of 82%

During this years October and November Full Moon Party I had bookings for 27 beds/nights

From the 27 beds/nights bookings, I had 8 nights cancelled and 12 just didn't turn up.

For the first November week in 2014, I have an occupancy rate of 26%

Now I'm lucky, we are only a small resort with a pretty good reputation and still have

some customers, mainly Holiday people or People attending Yoga and dive courses

but NO party tourists. Those resorts without a decent reputation or the ones who rely

on Party Tourists, are having a hard time.

No problem for me personally, just gives me a well deserved rest but for others running

businesses here, times have become pretty tough for the small or medium businesses

here on the island as many of them have taken out loans to expand their places whilst

there was a tourist boom. Now, they can't pay back their debts to, .... well guess.

Again, the "Cream de la cream" have nothing to worry, if it's not tourist money flowing

into their pockets, then it's money or land from failed businesses.

[mrtoad]

It's now a juggernaut running out of control. Someone is going down big time but who?

Police reputation is in absolute ruins.

Gen P has given the Cops enough rope to hang themselves which they have done.

What's going to come now?

The General will have the opportunity to finish the influence of The BIB and maybe the DL. Mord going on here me thinks

[olaska]

It only started, now they put the two together in a standard cell and -then- get worried they will commit suicide. And yes, the Prayuth travel to Myanmar got -absolutely- nothing to do with the murders. And the DNA was handled 100 correct, and my mom was a dragon from Mars

[12DrinkMore]

Does somebody knows WHY we dont hear nothing from Sean MacAnna ? from what i saw he wrote on his facebook that he was in danger because of mafia and " AC bar owner did it ".

If what he wrote was really from him , why the hell this guy isnt talking , he is not in thailand anymore. Why UK police doesnt interview him ???

He posted on Soundcloud three times this morning, just after midnight. (There is a whole load of spam from a couple of idiots)

https://soundcloud.com/seanmcanna/johnny

"To everyone commenting. I never said I knew the killers. I said that if I died that night it was the guy from in touch who "did it". anybody with half a brain knows it would always be blamed on Burmese. I'm gutted for everyone involved, but there's really nothing I can do. I'm sorry the newspapers lied to you. Believe me, they lied about a lot of things. They just like a story."

"I think he knew who it was and needed a scapegoat. It would have been enough for me to "hag myself" in order for them to point the finger at me. My sister directed me to a Thai forum from a week before this all happened which I didn't know about at the time. It said I would be framed and so would the guy living in the cave in Samui. So somebody knew about this before I did."

I had that wound from the 9th. There are plenty of people who seen me with the cut every day in restaurants, bars and dive shops. When I left the message on his facebook a few days after (When Dave's name was released), I only meant that I knew the type of person he was. He was a great guy who would stand against wrong in any situation.

Make of that, what you will.....