ID :
341762
Thu, 09/18/2014 - 14:36
Auther :

Hunt continues for murderers of Britons, DNA tests of victims not match with suspects

SURAT THANI, THAILAND, September 18 (TNA) - Thai police have continued hunting for murderers of two British tourists whose bodies were found on a beach of Koh Tao, an island in the Gulf of Thailand off Surat Thani Province in the Thai South, on September 15, as DNA tests on the victims' bodies did not match with suspects interrogated by police earlier. The police now believe that there were more than one murderer who had brutally killed the two Britons, 24-year-old David William Miller and 23-year-old Hannah Witheridge. Surat Thani Police Commander Police Major General Kiattipong Khaosam-ang told journalists on Thursday that forensic police initially found mixed semen in Witheridge’s vagina, making them believe that there were more than one person involving in the killing. Police Major General Kiattipong said that local police have, thus, been hunting for another suspect appearing on a close-circuit television (CCTV), while having been monitoring Asian migrant workers on the island as well, especially Rohingya workers. Police General Jaramporn Suramanee, an adviser to the Royal Thai Police, was, in the meantime, flying to Koh Tao on Thursday afternoon, to conduct detailed investigation again, after DNA tests on the two victims' bodies did not match with suspects interrogated by police earlier. Police Major General Apichai Thi-amart, Commander of Tourist Police, told reporters that officials of the British Embassy to Thailand have already picked up a British tourist, Christopher Alan Ware, who is believed to be a friend of the male victim and was earlier suspected of involving in last Monday's murder, and his younger brother and they were expected to be sent back to Britain later on Thursday, after police investigators found that wounds on Ware's back hand, were caused by his playing with fireworks as confirmed by a medical certificate. The British Embassy in Bangkok announced that it is willing to coordinate with Ware and his brother if police want additional information from them. Police earlier asked Ware not to leave Thailand, as they suspected that he involved in the murder. Ware’s younger brother, according to police, had returned to Bangkok from Koh Tao before the murder took place and he, therefore, was not involved in the brutal murder. In another related development, British Embassy Consul Michael Hancock led parents and a younger sister of the female victim to meet Police General Jaramporn to enquire him on the progress of the case and on autopsy results from the two victims. Police General Jaramporn told journalists that her relatives also requested the media to present only constructive reports by taking the feeling of the relatives into consideration. A private firm, hired by the British Embassy to Thailand, has contacted Police Hospital's Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bangkok to receive the victims' bodies to be sent back to Britain. Despite the incident, most foreign tourists on Koh Tao, one of most tourist attractions in Thailand, said they will visit the island again if they have an opportunity, while villagers on the resort island wore black to mourn the death of the two tourists and organised a Buddhist religious ceremony to make merits for the two killed Britons. (TNA)

X