Corrupt Thai Police Officer is Suspect in Brutal Rape and Murder of Kristy Jones by Phairath Khampha 27 January 2002 Thailand's police reopened their investigation into the brutal rape and murder of Welsh traveller Kirsty Jones while the chief of the country's tourist police said his officers in Chiang Mai would undergo DNA tests following stunning fresh evidence was uncovered. British detectives investigating the brutal rape and murder of Kirsty Jones in Thailand discovered that that her killer was a Thai policeman and that was the reason that the Thai police had not only framed another man from Britain, but also tried to quash the investigation. The detectives from DyfedPowys in Wales in the middle of January reviewed evidence linking a group of Thai policemen to the Aree Guest House in Chiang Mai, where the 23-year-old Welsh backpacker was found brutally strangled and raped on August 10, 2000. The information points to a Thai tourist policeman with fluent English who had a reputation for prowling local bars looking for foreign women and sexually attacking them and was seen outside the guest house on the night in question. The detectives asked the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok to take over the enquiry because the Chiang Mai police were too busy styming the investigation. It was possible the Thai police would ask that a group of officers in Chiang Mai undergo DNA tests. If Jones’ killer were to turn out to be the police suspect, it would explain why police in Chiang Mai, known to be very corrupt and involved in all sorts of shady dealings with drug taffickers and corrupt politicians and government officers, put a lid on the enquiry. Superintendent Steve Wilkins of DyfedPowys police and Detective Inspector Steve Hughson return to London on January 14 after presenting what they described as ''several lines of enquiry'' to General Charnchit Phianlert, deputy commissioner of the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok. Also present at the meeting was Britain’s ambassador to Thailand, Barny Smith. Regional police from Chiang Mai understandably were not permitted to be at the meeting. To encourage the enquiry the British detectives also gave Thai police separate DNA evidence which they believe would convict a man who had killed a Thai motorcycle policeman in 2001. Thai police claim they would agree to form a completely new unit to take the enquiry further. Welsh police provided a complete DNA profile of Jones’ killer. They said that if Thai police now follow their guidelines they would certainly find the murderer as it was a clear open and shut case. DNA tests carried out at the Regional Crime Laboratory in Chepstow and the National Forensic Science Laboratory in London confirmed tests made in Chiang Mai by Dr Thanin Bhoopat, and showed that within eight days of the murder the Thai police knew that the killer was Asian. Nevertheless, they ignored the work done by the forensic scientists and charged the guest house owner, Andrew Gill, who was now in Scotland. But they completely denied reports emanating from Chiang Mai police that they believed Gill could have been the killer. It is believed that the ''group of five'' – one Thai army officer and four tourist policemen – were friends with both Gill and Surin Janpamet, the guesthouse manager. Surin was a former Buddhist monk who was forced to leave his temple after being accused of having sex with a foreign tourist on the temple grounds. The group trawled Chiang Mai’s Night Bazaar extorting drinks from foreign barowners and attempting to chat up local tourists. They also drank frequently from the fridge at the guest house, and ''helped out'' Gill whenever he got into trouble, usually after a drunken brawl. Two witnesses identified one of the group of policemen wearing civilian clothes in the area of the guest house on the night Jones was murdered. One even saw him smoking a cigarette under a tree in the Aree courtyard as if he were waiting for someone. A second witness, a schoolteacher, saw the same man coming out of the lobby, off which was Jones’ room. But the second witness then claimed to have seen Andy Gill go into the room and then heard the screams. The DNA evidence from the UK indicated that Gill was set up on the murder charge. The Chiang Mai police claimed that they had DNA evidence against Gill from a hair found in Jones’ room, which could have been there simply because Gill owned the guest house and often cleaned the rooms and made up the beds. The superintendent in charge of the case, Suthep Dechrugsa, explained away the sperm on the body not being Gill's by saying it was quite likely that Gill or his partner in crime had probably gone out on the streets of Chiang Mai and bought the sperm from a labourer or a prostitute, ''who would be quite willing to sell it for money''. Is Thailand not a dirty country??? What had not been revealed before was that Jones went to the Bubbles discotheque in Chiang Mai on August 8, the night before her murder. With her was Nathan Foley, an Australian backpacker and the first suspect to be picked up, and two girls, Sai and Nang, from the Aree Guest House. It was in this area that the tourist police used to hang around and attempt to chat up lone girl tourists, witnesses said for use as victims later. A source close to the investigation said: ''The pilice general in charge of the investigation wanted this matter closed quickly because he was afraid of where it would lead. When he arrested Andrew Gill for the murder he thought he would be able to shut down the enquiry and give Maj. General Aram Jampen [the former head of Region 5, which covers eight provinces in northern Thailand] a retirement present." But British police know when the story is awry and are tenancious to find the truth. He added: ''British Embassy officials have come to Chiang Mai several times to try to revive the investigation. Every time they come there is a lot of jumping around, and officers go off in all directions to make 'enquiries'. But as soon as the embassy officials go everything stops. If the murderer is a policeman they would not want to make this public." ''They refused to DNA the officers. They claimed they could not because they could not get permission from Tourist Police Headquarters in Bangkok," he said. There was also reluctance to help from Region 5 police. A senior Chiang Mai police general tried to block the DNA being sent to England, saying it had all been lost, and the British officers were reminded that they had no jurisdiction in Thailand. If they attempted to interview witnesses, they were told, they would be deported immediately. Welsh detectives had since been given details of the sexual attacks on four other women by Thai policemen in plainsclothes – two from London – in the Chiang Mai area. Had the British detectives been able to interview Dr Thanin they would have known immediately that the killer had Asian or Thai DNA and that the killer was also the rapist. At Chiang Mai’s Samitivej University, Dr Thanin said: ''Yes, I knew from my experience of DNA testing that the rapist was Asian. I also knew that there was no DNA evidence to link Andrew Gill to the crime. I gave this information to police. I cannot, however, interfere with how they run their investigation. In the end the case was thrown out because of the lack of DNA evidence. Furthermore, if I pressed the point I would not be here today speaking to you.'' In fact the closest match to the DNA was a trekking guide from the Karen hill tribe called Narong Pojanathamrongpong, 36. The similarity was so close to the murderer that British police also asked for testing of all his relatives. Narong, who was beaten by Thai police in an attempt to extract a confession and/or otherwise silence him, has three brothers – Luger, 42, Charlie, 28, and Ni Yom., 42. Luger is also a trekking guide, and the two younger brothers are farmers, but all were over 150 kilometres away in the village of Pha Dtung when Jones was killed. Narong said: ''I trust the British police; I cannot trust Thai police who are mainly nothing more than uniformed thugs. But I know it was not me and cannot believe it could be any of my brothers. I am willing to undergo DNA testing again, but I would prefer British police to be present.'' Superintendent Wilkins said: ''Despite the setbacks I want to make the point that there are some very good policeman in Thailand who want to pursue the case properly and seem very willing to do so. They have been given new lines of enquiry and we hope they pursue the case fully, whatever result they may get. The work carried out by the forensic scientist Dr Bhoopat was excellent.'' But in the end, in true Thai style, if the culprits are people high up in Thai society, the investugation surely will lead nowhere. Because there is little true jutice in Thailand. Police reopen murder probe The police reopened their investigation into the rape and murder of Welsh traveller Kirsty Jones while the chief of the country's tourist police said his officers in Chiang Mai would undergo DNA tests following the stunning fresh revelations. Police chief Sant Sarutanond said a preliminary investigation would be launched into the British team's findings, and the case would be formally reopened if there were grounds to support it. The preliminary probe would be carried out jointly between Chiang Mai police and those assigned by the central headquarters. Sant wondered about the reported findings, which threatened to trigger another scandal for the Thai police. A scandal erupted in January wherein senior Thai police officers were routinely buying sex from 12-year old girls who were being forced into prostitution and held against their will in what was nothing more than instituionalized rape. One of the vicitms managed to report what was happening to Paveena Hongsakul, a woman member of Thailand's parliament. She was able to correctly identify three senior policemen, one a colonel, as men who had paid to rape her, from a lineup of 17 men. "We are quite positive about the main evidence of the previous police investigation - the presence of a Western man at the crime scene," Sant said. "The news report accusing the Thai police was presented in a manner that was probably intended to spur us into action, but we treat every case equally, regardless of whether police or soldiers are suspects." Tourist police chief Sanit Meephan said he was willing to force his Chiang Mai officers to undergo DNA tests if he received further information narrowing down a list of suspects. He said he was not against testing the DNA of all Chiang Mai tourist policemen, but added that such action would be costly. "I never had a clue that a tourist policeman could have been the murderer until I read the newspaper," he said. Sanit added that he had gone through previous investigation reports and there had never any mention of possible involvement of tourist police. "I will never protect wrongdoers who work under me. I have always told my subordinates that anyone of them who does something bad to tourists deserves to be punished twice as hard the normal law," he said.