Koh Tao's dark side: dangers of island where Britons were murdered
Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were killed in Koh Tao, where fear of mafia involvement hides under paradisical façade
Peter Walker in Koh Tao
The Guardian

KOH TAO: -- Six weeks on, there is little to mark the spot on the idyllic rocky beach inlet on Koh Tao where Hannah Witheridge and David Miller met such brutal deaths; just two tiny piles of stones separated by a line of twigs in the sand, someone’s modest, anonymous, temporary memorial.

A few hundred yards away along Sairee beach, the main tourist drag on the Thai holiday island, life continues as normal. Business, says a French man running a dive shop – much of Koh Tao’s tourism is based around diving – is actually busier than expected for the monsoon season. “After the murders you did notice that there were fewer people for a bit. But it was only really the British that stayed away. With everyone else, they didn’t even really notice.”

If this appears curious then Koh Tao, the smallest and most remote among a trio of tourism-dominated islands in the Gulf of Thailand, abounds in such paradoxes.

It is a place where visitors spend their days learning the rigorous safety standards of diving before hopping, without helmets and clad in shorts and vest, on to rickety rental motorbikes. Tourist deaths are not unknown – two bodies of drowned westerners were found in the sea within a couple of days this month – but it is known as one of the safer spots in Thailand.

The biggest contradiction centres around the deaths of Witheridge, 23, and Miller, 24 – the British backpackers brutally beaten on the head yards from their hotel, the former also raped, the latter left to drown in shallow surf. Just about everyone on Koh Tao insists visitors are safe, but many also agree, quietly, that the Burmese migrant workers arrested for the murders are innocent – meaning the real killer or killers remain at large.

Full story: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/23/briton-thailand-murder-hannah-witheridge-david-miller-mystery-mafia-fear

-- the guardian 2014-11-24

Link doesn't seem to want to open!

Link doesn't seem to want to open!

Works for me OK.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/23/briton-thailand-murder-hannah-witheridge-david-miller-mystery-mafia-fear

Link doesn't seem to want to open!

Does for me.

Keep the publicity, and particularly the international interest going, and just maybe there will be a result. The BIB and what can roughly be described as the Thai government are hoping that other world news will bury this story.

Not my favourite paper, but well done The Guardian!

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

Perhaps someone should take a look at Costa de Sols record lately, its tame here by comparison.

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

Here it is - but not the way you want to make believe

There are many hints that make some known people very suspicious and the clou ist those hints have been completely ignored by the "police" - which increases the suspicion even more

Perhaps someone should take a look at Costa de Sols record lately, its tame here by comparison.

As are lots of other places around the world - no denying that - but we're talking about Thailand here and the brutal murder of two young Brits. All we are looking for is justice, or even just transparency, neither of which we are apparently getting.

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

Something new in this article, any facts or evidence that wasn't written about thousand times already?

Just about everyone on Koh Tao insists visitors are safe, but many also agree, quietly, that the Burmese migrant workers arrested for the murders are innocent – meaning the real killer or killers remain at large.

I, for one,

and delighted that Thai Visa is not being censored and ran with this story.

I wondered there for a while,

each story, digs a little deeper, goes a little further, and has lent immense credibility to the people who refuse to let this brutal rape and murder on Koh Tao,

go quietly into the night.

Montriwat seems to have a DNA test in his future, now that several articles state that he did not give DNA< only blood and urine,

But we were all led to believe he gave DNA.

This story also makes it clear,

the headman knows everything that goes on his island,

just not this,

the worst brutal rape and murder,

and he knows nothing

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

Something new in this article, any facts or evidence that wasn't written about thousand times already?

Just about everyone on Koh Tao insists visitors are safe, but many also agree, quietly, that the Burmese migrant workers arrested for the murders are innocent – meaning the real killer or killers remain at large.

Yes, the last sentence of a UK newspaper's reporter..............

Asked by the Guardian how he judged his fate, he replied: “There are so many people helping us, we are sure we can get justice. And we didn’t do it.”

Gave me goose bumps when I read that...hope it works out for them

The whole thing has become a farce, unlikely that it will ever be solved.

Perhaps someone should take a look at Costa de Sols record lately, its tame here by comparison.

Don't know about Spain, but France .......

"In the last 12 months 362 Britons died in Thailand, more than did so in France, which attracts nearly 20 times more British tourists. This is partly down to Thailands younger tourist demographic but also the countrys treacherous roads."

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

Something new in this article, any facts or evidence that wasn't written about thousand times already?

Just about everyone on Koh Tao insists visitors are safe, but many also agree, quietly, that the Burmese migrant workers arrested for the murders are innocent – meaning the real killer or killers remain at large.

Yes, the last sentence of a UK newspaper's reporter..............

You mean that they claim to be innocent?

For your information, the vast majority of inmates all over the world claim to be innocent.

Next

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

Something new in this article, any facts or evidence that wasn't written about thousand times already?

Just about everyone on Koh Tao insists visitors are safe, but many also agree, quietly, that the Burmese migrant workers arrested for the murders are innocent – meaning the real killer or killers remain at large.

Yes, the last sentence of a UK newspaper's reporter..............

You mean that they claim to be innocent?

For your information, the vast majority of inmates all over the world claim to be innocent.

Next

Fink you must read it again............

Eeeeeeer, next..................

Something new in this article, any facts or evidence that wasn't written about thousand times already?

Just about everyone on Koh Tao insists visitors are safe, but many also agree, quietly, that the Burmese migrant workers arrested for the murders are innocent – meaning the real killer or killers remain at large.

Yes, the last sentence of a UK newspaper's reporter..............

You mean that they claim to be innocent?

For your information, the vast majority of inmates all over the world claim to be innocent.

Next

Fink you must read it again............

Eeeeeeer, next..................

This is what I read as last sentence from the reporter. Maybe you have a different article on your screen?

Asked by the Guardian how he judged his fate, he replied: “There are so many people helping us, we are sure we can get justice. And we didn’t do it.”

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

Something new in this article, any facts or evidence that wasn't written about thousand times already?

Just about everyone on Koh Tao insists visitors are safe, but many also agree, quietly, that the Burmese migrant workers arrested for the murders are innocent – meaning the real killer or killers remain at large.

Even if there were nothing new in this article - this article was necessary - and many more of that kind are.

The terrible Koh Tao double murder and the connected "police" action is still not solved and clear beyond reasonable doubt. There is nothing transparent and the suspicion exists that there are influential people who want to keep it this way.

If this Koh Tao case will not be mentioned any more everything will be power shoveled under the carpet and the case will never be clear and the danger persists that murderers are still walking free. May be that there are influential people who want to keep it this way. This should never be allowed

http://mikeestravels.com/2014/09/25/the-dark-side-of-thailands-island-paradise/

Perhaps someone should take a look at Costa de Sols record lately, its tame here by comparison.

Look pal.... If you live in the Costa Del Sol, then please go and use the Spanish expat forums, this is Thailand and Thai forum. So stop attempting to justify murder as an acceptable norm just because murder happens elsewhere.

Now go and haunt another forum and post your evidence of 6 mysterious deaths on a tiny remote island as is what we are seeing on the tiny island of Kho Tao.

Koh Tao is NOT the Costa Del Sol.... It is tiny... so your comparison is completely disproportionate and therefore invalid.

By the way you are almost certainly pointing to the recent gangland turf wars between the Brit and Irish drug barons fighting over who runs what territory. Completely different, the Spanish are not hacking their tourists to death and throwing their bodies in the sea only to have their police and government cover everything up to protect tourism..

<snip>

Perhaps someone should take a look at Costa de Sols record lately, its tame here by comparison.

They look at France which had 20 times more tourists yet Thailand had over 360 violent deaths of Brits alone. If it is the same for other nationalities that makes thousands of tourist deaths. But for now Thailand appears, for Brits, to be more dangerous than Helmand province in war torn Afghanistan.

Influential people which could also be considered as David Cameron, whom hasn't said much since.

It has been named as MURDER ISLAND now here in the U.K. and rightly so

Influential people which could also be considered as David Cameron, whom hasn't said much since.

Perhaps because we do not do finger pointing photo shoots and keep our eggs in one basket/powder dry until the right time comes eh.....

Perhaps someone should take a look at Costa de Sols record lately, its tame here by comparison.

Look pal.... If you live in the Costa Del Sol, then please go and use the Spanish expat forums, this is Thailand and Thai forum. So stop attempting to justify murder as an acceptable norm just because murder happens elsewhere.

Now go and haunt another forum and post your evidence of 6 mysterious deaths on a tiny remote island as is what we are seeing on the tiny island of Kho Tao.

Koh Tao is NOT the Costa Del Sol.... It is tiny... so your comparison is completely disproportionate and therefore invalid.

By the way you are almost certainly pointing to the recent gangland turf wars between the Brit and Irish drug barons fighting over who runs what territory. Completely different, the Spanish are not hacking their tourists to death and throwing their bodies in the sea only to have their police and government cover everything up to protect tourism..

<snip>

Fair enough, but as usual Vailed Thai Bashing creeps in.

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

Come out, come out wherever you are JD!

The very fact that western tourists are flocking to that cesspit of an island by the thousands after what happened clearly shows how superficial and careless many people are. It's sickening!

Can't wait for "you know who" response to this......... ..

After 8:30pm i think its still at work lol.

Why don't you all wait for the trial.