Engelse backpackster vermoord op Koh Samui

[Greuf]

Hoi, ben net terug uit Londen en daar was het nieuws van de dag dat een 21 jarige Engelse backpackster op nieuwjaarsdag is vermoord op Koh Samui. Ze verbleef in het New Hut complex op Lamai beach. Ze liep 's avonds alleen over het strand en belde met haar moeder, haar moeder hoorde opeens een schreeuw en daarna werd de verbinding verbroken. De volgende dag werd ze dood in zee gevonden, waarschijnlijk is ze eerst verkracht, daarna mishandeld en in het water gegooid waar ze uiteindelijk is verdronken. (dit is een korte vertaling van wat er in de Engelse kranten stond)

Heel erg schokkend nieuws dus, je verwacht niet dat dit je gaat overkomen als je naar het Thailand met de eeuwige glimlach gaat.

Dit vond ik zojuist op het internet:

Student on Thai backpacking trip found dead after phoning home

· Murder feared after body is discovered off resort island
· New year call was last contact with Cardiff family

Steven Morris and Sam Jones
Tuesday January 3, 2006
The Guardian


Police in Thailand were last night investigating the death of a British backpacker whose body was found in the sea off a popular island resort. A jet-skier saw the body of Katherine Horton, 21, floating close to a beach off Koh Samui in south-east Thailand yesterday morning, local time, the Foreign Office confirmed.
Police were waiting for the results of a postmortem examination before revealing the cause of death, and refused to comment on local TV reports that the student had been murdered. Ms Horton, who studied psychology at Reading University, had planned to spend two weeks backpacking around Thailand with her friend and fellow student, Ruth Adams.


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The pair left the UK on December 27 and reached Koh Samui on New Year's Eve. They booked themselves into the £10-a-night New Hut bungalow resort and Ms Horton rang relatives in Cardiff to wish them a happy new year. She was last seen by Ms Adams on the night of January 1, when she answered a phone call and went for a walk on the beach while she chatted.
Ms Adams, also 21, returned to her bungalow, where she fell asleep. She did not notice her friend's absence until the next morning. Ms Horton's body was found near the beach shortly afterwards.

Ms Horton's mother, Elizabeth, who lives in Thornhill, Cardiff, said yesterday: "She's been in touch once to wish us all a happy new year, but that was the last we've heard of her. She sounded so happy out there. I can't believe she's gone. It just doesn't seem real, it doesn't seem possible ... But nobody seems to be able to tell me how she has died, or what has happened to her. I just want to know what happened to my little girl, but no one can tell me."

She added: "They were just going to travel around backpacking before coming home to carry on with her studies. She was such a lovely girl and I can't believe this is happening to us. You hear about these things but you wouldn't ever dream it could happen to you. I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do." Ms Horton was the younger of two children.

Her father, Richard, lives nearby and is described as "devastated", while a former schoolfriend said: "Katherine is a fantastic girl with a bubbly personality. Everyone here will be in a terrible state of shock."

A spokesman for the police in Thailand said that Ms Horton's body had been flown to Bangkok for a post mortem examination. Meanwhile, a South Wales police spokesman said the force was liaising with the Foreign Office and Thai police over Ms Horton's death, which he described as a "tragic incident"; trained officers were helping the family, he added.

Koh Samui, an island off east Thailand, attracts thousands of young British visitors each year. Over the last 30 years, it has gone from being a virtually unknown agricultural community to a highly developed destination for students on gap years. But Thailand's reputation as a playground has been tarnished over recent years following a number of murders, while the country has also struggled to rebuild its tourist industry in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami of Boxing Day 2004.

Almost 5,400 people - half of them foreign - were killed when the tsunami struck Thailand just over a year ago.

Paradise lost

In 2000, Kirsty Jones, 23, from Brecon, south Wales, was raped and murdered at a guesthouse in Chang Mai. Two years ago, James Green, 63, a Yorkshire expatriate, was shot and stabbed to death by two men in Ratchaburi. In 2004, the body of Scots backpacker Mark Lemetti, 24, was found on a rubber plantation, 125 miles south of the capital, Bangkok; he had been beaten to death with a snooker cue. Last year, a Thai detective got life imprisonment for murdering Adam Lloyd, 25, and Vanessa Arscott, 23, from Devon, near the bridge over the River Kwai in 2003.

[dirk]

Niet dat ik het goed praat wat er gebeurd is, maar als ik zie hoeveel mensen er in de grote steden zijn vermoord zou je toch ook niet meer daar naar toe gaan.
Als ik in Thailand ben voel ik me veiliger dan als ik een avondje uit ga met mijn vrouw in Rotterdam.

[Mitmig]

KOH SAMUI: -- Two fisherman have been arrested in Thailand over the murder of British backpacker Katherine Horton.

Koh Samui police say they arrested two local fishermen in connection with the murder of the 21-year-old from Cardiff.

The pair, aged 23 and 24, were arrested close to the beach where she was last seen and were taken into custody after their boat returned to the island.

Evidence based on a post-mortem examination suggests Miss Horton was raped and badly beaten.

The Reading University student was last seen just hours before on New Year's Day.

Miss Horton, who was due to return home next week after a couple of weeks in Thailand, was with friends on Lamai beach and is reported to have wandered away from them as she spoke to her mother on her mobile phone.

What happened to her between that moment and the discovery of her body is unknown. Her body was found in the bay by a jet ski operator.

At the weekend, police said they had begun to take DNA samples from fishermen working on five boats which were in the area the night she died.

On Saturday a British couple who had found her mobile telephone on the sand returned to the island to assist police.

The Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, had called on investigators to find those responsible for her death as quickly as possible but urged them also to be prudent.

-- BBC Breaking News 2006-01-09

[stevenl]

Uit de Phuket Gazette van vandaag:

KOH SAMUI: Two young Thai fishermen whose DNA matched that of semen samples taken from the body of murdered tourist Katherine Horton have confessed to raping and murdering her, police said today.

Ms Horton, a 21-year-old student from Wales, arrived on Samui with a fellow student on December 31, in time to celebrate New Year’s Eve there.

She was last seen going for a late night stroll on the evening of January 1. Her body was discovered at about 10 am the following morning, floating in shallow water at Lamai Beach.

Police identified her killers as Wichai “Loh” Somkhaoyai, 24 and Bualoi Kosit, 23.

Samui District Police Superintendent Pol Col Akom Saisamai told the Gazette that the two men confessed to raping Miss Horton and then beating her to death.

Police Region 8 Deputy Commissioner Pol Maj Gen Santhan Chayanont told the Gazette today that the two men would be charged with premeditated gang rape resulting in death, and attempting to conceal the body.

The charges are punishable by execution, though in Thailand such sentences are usually commuted to life imprisonment if the accused pleads guilty to the crime and expresses remorse for it.