What about bar manager accused of harassing victim at Koh Tao?

But in the past few the days National Police chief General Somyot Poompanmoung brought Praween back – to “tidy up” the case.

Praween then complained to the press about criticism by the public of the police’s handling of the investigation. 

He warned that anyone posting false information about the murder case on the Internet would be prosecuted in criminal courts. 

He made the remark because the police gave a DNA test this week to a person who they had passed up as a suspect at the beginning of the case many weeks ago, immediately after the murders of two British tourists on Koh Tao. 

This person is the son of the owner of the bar where the two victims were last seen alive. He claimed he was out of town at the time of the murders and so police did not make him take the DNA test. But because there remained some doubt about his actual whereabouts at the time of the murders, perhaps due to gaps in press reporting, the public was not reason in demanding that he subject himself to the test. 

A British witness had taken a photo of two men pestering the female victim not long before she was raped and murdered. He went to her assistance. One of the two troublemakers identified by the British witness and appearing in the photo is the bar manager. He is the bar owner’s brother or nephew. 

The press reported that he refused to take a DNA test after the murders. And the British witness sought protection from the British Embassy in Bangkok after receiving death threats over the Internet. 

The public has every right to point out lapses by the police in the investigation of a homicide. A trained crime investigator takes nothing for granted. Since the bar manager, a close relative of the bar owner, was (allegedly) groping and annoying the victim before her rape and murder, police could rightfully scrutinise him and other male relatives of his who were – or could have been – in the vicinity at the time of the murders.

If the manager of the bar took a DNA test that ruled him out as a suspect in the rape, then the press failed to report it and the public is right in demanding he take the test. 

Did police ever look into the death threats made against the British witness to trace their source? That might lead to the rapists and murderers. 

The press did not consider the possibility. They must not overlook it. The public must not be intimidated by an inept policeman who has no business in this matter. 

Somyot cannot provide a 

reasonable explanation for bringing back Praween to the case, especially to oversee it. 

Piyapong Mahakhan

Bangkok