Monthly Archive for March, 2008

Bea the hippy princess raves at the full moon - Mail on Sunday March 30 08

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Bea the hippy princess raves at the full moon

Link to Mail on Sunday

By ANDREW DRUMMOND
 

Princess Beatrice has been enjoying a backpacker-style break in Thailand - drinking the local whisky and dancing on the beach into the early hours. Princess Beatrice 01

The 19-year-old flew into Phuket two weeks ago and headed for the picturesque island of Phi Phi with a group of 15 girlfriends and two armed guards.

Her party hired a block of 12 rooms at the £48-a-night Phi Phi Villa Resort, close to beautiful TonsaiBeach.

Each day she swam with her chums in the local bay and partied on the sands.

Last Saturday night, Beatrice’s group headed to Koh Phagnan to enjoy one of the island’s notorious “Full Moon” raves.

A tourist was stabbed to death at that party, although it is not known if Beatrice was aware of this.

The parties attract thousands of young travellers each full moon and have been the subject of Foreign Office warnings following a series of rapes and deaths.

Left: Princess Beatrice - file picture
Back on Phi Phi, the Princess’s favourite spots included the British-owned Tiger Bar and a Thai-run beach bar called Hippies, where backpackers dance under candlelight on the beach.

Philip Osman, 26, of the Tiger Bar said: “Beatrice certainly knew how to party. She was up there dancing and encouraging others to join in. Princess Beatrice Phi Phi 01

Picture - Dancing at Hippies’ Bar (Andrew Chant)

“She was drinking by the bucketful. She bought a bucket which she filled with Thai whisky, Red Bull, ice and coke. But I did not see her drunk.”

Princess Beatrice’s trip comes at a time when the country’s tourist authorities have expressed concern over attacks on tourists and have even come up with a plan to issue female tourists with whistles.

Recently a 27-yr-old Swedish woman was stabbed to death in broad daylight on Khao Mai Beach on the holiday island of Phuket.

At Hippies bar on Koh Phi Phim frequented by Princess Beatrice,  a DJ currently faces a charged of murdering a Belgian tourist as he walked home. The tourist is alleged to have insulted a Thai woman.

A spokesman for Beatrice said she would not comment on a private trip.

Princess Beatrice Phi Phi 02 1

Selling booze by the bucket on Koh Phi Phi (Andrew Chant)

Princess Beatrice Tiger Bar Phi Phi 1

Philip Osman, from Swansea, and Toby Collingwood, from Hull, co-owners ‘Tiger Bar’  Phi Phi Island

Thai police played the keyboards at my wedding to child bride - says child rapist

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Thai policeman played the keyboards at my wedding to under-aged girl, says convicted child rapist - March 23 08

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok
Police in Thailand said today  they were reconsidering a decision to grant bail for the sixth time to a convicted British child rapist, known as ‘The Ghost’ who was arrested last week for abusing an eight-yr-old boy.

After protests from child-watch groups Police Colonel Khanisorn Yuwawhitaya, in charge of the Women and Children’s Division of Thai Police Region 2, which covers the resort of Pattaya, said he would send an order to police in Pattaya to ‘put things right’.

Police in the resort, infamous for its sex trade, have repeatedly released Praill, 77, from Harold Hill, Essex.  He was last bailed on Wednesday for the equivalent of £6,500 within hours of his arrest in the shower of his home in Bongkot Villas, Pattaya.Maurice Praill 02 1 2

Praill, the step-father of ex-footballer Jon Goodman, who played for Wimbledon, Crystal Palace, and Ireland, was convicted in 2001 for the rape of two under-aged girls in the resort, aged and 11 and 12 and jailed for 14 years. He was bailed pending appeal and when he lost that appeal in 2004 he appealed to the Supreme Court and was given bail again. 

Prior to 2001, Praill had been arrested three times on child sex allegations.
Each time he was released by Pattaya police, after paying ‘fines’ to local police, according to the local newspaper ‘The Pattaya Mail’.

He was arrested again in March last year with three other foreigners who allegedly used a ‘home delivery service’ for paedophiles in Pattaya.  Young girls were taken on motorbikes to the customers apartments, police claimed.

One of the three, American Glen Allen, 61, was last month jailed for 16 years in cases involving girls or 9 and 11. But the case against Praill is no longer in the court after the prosecution offered no evidence.

(One of the ‘victims’ in the case was a daughter of another of Praill’s maids. She was not called to testify against Praill.    Police claimed he abused her upstairs while the mother did the housework downstairs. Praill admitted knowing her however ‘from the day she was born’)

Maurice Praill, 77, known to his child victims as ‘The Ghost’ because of his frightening appearance, denied yesterday ever paying bribes to local police.

“I don’t need to. They never produce proper evidence against me, “ he said at his Pattaya home.  “They are targeting me. It’s getting a little hot.  But I could be dead before they get a conviction on the latest charge, and I am confidence I will win my appeal for child rape. I have one of the best lawyers in Bangkok. I’ve seen him on TV.”

“I like young people. All my girlfriends have been younger than me,” he added.

Two years after his arrival in Thailand in the late eighties, Praill married a 15-yr-old girl, the daughter of his maid, who had been in his house for two years,  in a marriage blessed by Buddhist monks.

“The parents asked me to marry their daughter. They wanted to secure her future.  Her father was not too well. A policeman even led the band and played the organ at the wedding party,” he said yesterday, adding that the girl left him within the year to join her glue-sniffing chums.PraillM04 Wedding

“The latest charges are a set-up. This boy has been at my house but I sent him away giving him 50 baht. I sensed there was something wrong.

“The day I was alleged to have committed this offence my ex-wife, who remains a friend, was staying with me on the way to Borneo.

“Its members of a local orphanage who are setting me up. They have tried before and failed.”

Sudarat Sudarat of  Thailand’s National Child Protection Committee and Secretary General of ‘The Fight Against Child Exploitation’ (FACE) said she had protested Praill’s release.

“Every time he is released children are in danger, “ she added.

The British taxpayer has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to pay for courses for Thai police, court officials, and child welfare groups, to ensure paedophiles are swiftly and professionally dealt with. The courses have often been preceded by parties hosted by the British Ambassador.

The courses were introduced after several notable paedophiles being tracked by British police were either released without charge or acquitted in court.  The most recent courses were run by Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre  (CEOP) which will shortly host more visits by Thai police to the U.K.

Added Sudarat Sereewat: “We are trying to establish why Praill has been released so many times. Is it could be corruption? Is it incompetence. I would not like to say either without proof.  But police have now said they would withdraw the bail.”

FACE are in possession of a diary allegedly written by Praill in the early nineties, five years after his arrival in Thailand after retiring from running a video hire company in Chingford.Maurice Praill Diary

In the diary he describes how he paid children for sex by paying their school fees or buying them glue or simply giving them a few pounds.  He describes his anger at their ingratitude when they refuse or when they do not perform to his satisfaction.

Left: A page from Praill’s old diary

This page describes a frustrating night at home with two young girls who are sniffing glue but refuse him. One says ‘ Dont want. It hurts’.  ‘How much more can I take?’ complains Praill. The following morning he reports a girl ‘won’t touch it let alone smoke it’. But he reports happily at the end  he has succeeded and had the best session possible.

‘And she seemed to enjoy it - at last’

  Maurice Praill denies he has kept a diary.

LINKS

Child rapist ‘The Ghost’ arrested again - Daily Mail

Paedophile arrested for sixth time - Irish Independent

This article was updated on March 24 2008

Scandal as ‘child rapist’ released on bail again in Thailand - March 20 08

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 British paedophile ‘The Ghost’ accused of child rape ‘three times’ is arrested AGAIN in Thailand - Daily Mail

Stepfather of ex-soccer star accused of abducting Thai girls - Irish Independent March 21 07

Sixth arrested for convicted paedophile - Irish Independent March 19 08

From Andrew Drummond, Pattaya

 20th March 2008

The most notorious British paedophile in Thailand walked free from a police station again today after being granted £6,500 bail for the alleged sexual abuse of an eight year old boy.

Maurice Praill 02

 Maurice Praill, 77, formerly of Harold Hill, Essex, was arrested yesterday while already on bail for two other child sex offences. But he has been arrested in Thailand numerous times and been released.

 Police in Pattaya said today they raised the bail to the maximum amount allowed under law but Praill, known locally as ‘The Ghost’ was able to meet the fee. They declined to discuss why he was given bail at all.

Two years after his arrival in the late eighties, Praill married a 15-yr-old girl, the daughter of his maid, in a marriage seemingly blessed by Buddhist monks. The girl fled after three months.

 In December 2001 he was convicted of the rape of two young girls, but the formal charge only came after a series of arrests in the resort for which he was released after the local press reported he had paid ‘fines to local police’.

 But after his conviction he was immediately released on bail, and when he lost his appeal in 2004, curiously he got bail again to appeal to Thailand’s Supreme Court.

 In what child protection agencies describe as a ‘scandalous state of affairs’ Praill was arrested again last year for abusing two girls aged 9 and 11 at his condominium in the resort but within two weeks was out on bail again of £8000.

 Child welfare agencies have long believed that a fund exists subscribed to by an international paedophile group to pay ‘costs’ for members arrested in Thailand

Praill was arrested at his new home in Bongkot Villa, Pattaya, after a police surveillance team saw an eight-yr-old boy being delivered to his home in a motorcycle side platform, normally used by the driver for transporting goods to market.

 Thai police were called in after a member of the Child Protection Centre passed on complaints from the parents of the eight-year-old boy.

 Praill, who was previously arrested for abusing young girls, had now turned to young boys, said Police Colonel Khanisorn Yuwawithaya, who led the latest investigation.

 The police had been contacted by Supakorn Noja, of  the Pattaya Child Protection Centre, said Commander Kanisorn. “We formed a team and conducted surveillance. We witnessed the eight year old boy being delivered to his house. We arrested Praill when he was in the shower at his home in.”

 Sudarat Sudarat Thailand’s National Child Protection Committee described the Praill case as ‘scandalous’.

 “He could have been abusing our children for twenty years yet nobody has put him behind bars. I am shocked they have let him go again.

”We have spoken to some of his child victims. They call him ‘The Ghost’ because of his frightening appearance.”

 Britain, she added, had spent hundreds of thousand of pounds on much publicized projects accompanied by Embassy cocktail parties to educate the Thai police and justice system how to deal with child sex offenders.

 “This makes those efforts look very weak.  The Thai justice system will have to take more notice of the safety of the victims and possible future victims. He should never have been given bail. Paedophiles are repeat offenders,” she said.

 Praill  ran a video hire company called Phoenix Entertainment based in Chingford, Essex. His stepson footballer Jon Goodman, was capped for Ireland and also played for Millwall and Wimbledon. He is believed now to have cancelled all contact with his stepfather.

Praill’s lawyer, Nitiwat Pattanasarn, said: “Maurice Praill denies the allegations against him.

At his home in Pattaya after being freed Praill said: “It looks like the police are targetting me. I blame the child welfare agencies for targetting me. They are setting me up.  Yes I like young people.  I have always had younger girlfriends.

Picture: Maurice Praill at his wedding to the daughter of his maid. He paid 40,000 baht. Then about US$1000.Maurice Praill with Thai bride 1

 A second Briton, named a Ronald David Wiener, aged 59, was also relased on bail in Pattaya for sodomy in connection with another eight year old boy, who was playing on the beach while his parents ran a food stall. Wiener, from London, allegedly offered the boy the equivalent of £12 to go with him The cases are not connected.

Police said he willingly admitted the offences and came to Pattaya because he was told he could find young boys there. They also took away a number of pornographic videos of young boys having sex.
 

Briton killed over Thai bride March 14 2008

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From Andrew Drummond,
Bangkok, March 13 08

A Briton was murdered in Thailand by a mentally disturbed man who was jealous of the man’s forthcoming marriage to his sister.

Retired ICI worker Ivor Chandler, 56, from Skelton, East Cleveland, had been taken by a his Thai girlfriend, Chumporn, 28, from the resort of Pattaya to meet her parents, in the northern province of Phetchabun at the weend when Chandler was killed.

Shortly after his arrival late last week in the village of Khlong Thom he was attacked by the girl’s brother and fatally stabbed in the throat.

Police Captain Komchart Kankasaen said: “The brother, Tui Minim, is now in custody. He is not mentally well. He has to be looked after 24 hours a day by his family. He has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals.”

“It seems that he was jealous of all the attention the foreigner. He did not like strangers and he was used to getting all the attention.”

Mr.Chandler made regular visits to Thailand to visit his girlfriend. They planned to marry later this year.

John Denver karaoke sparks Thai killing spree - Sunday Telegraph March 9 08

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 John Denver karaoke sparks Thai killing spree - Sunday Telegraph

From Andrew Drummond,
Bangkok
A gunman in Thailand who shot-dead eight neighbours, including his brother-in-law, said yesterday he had had enough of the noise and their awful karaoke singing.

Weenus Chumkamnerd, 52, put his gun to the head of a respected female doctor and seven of her guests as they partied at her home in Songkhla Province, South Thailand.

“When I began shooting nobody pleaded for his life because they were all drunk,” he said after his arrest.

Weenus said he was so furious himself that he did not notice he had murdered his brother-in-law.

“I warned these people about their noisy karaoke parties. I said if they carried on I would go down and shoot them.  I had told them if I couldn’t talk sense into them I would come back and finish them off,”  he added.

Weenus, a rubber tapper, was arrested yesterday after going on the run after his killing spree on Sunday last week in the townn of  Hat Yai, near the Malaysian border.

The doctor who was hosting the party, Dr. Suthathip Thammachart, 36, a director of a local hospital who was due this month to get an awards for her services to medicine.

Weenus short her husband, Trirat, first and she was the last person to be shot. Her husband who would have been the nineth fatality survived after playing dead convincing Weenus that he too had been killed.  He later recovered in hospital.

When he realised he had shot his brother-in-law, named Boontip Desaro,  Weenus said he was filled with remorse.  He got his son to take Boontip to hospital, but he was already dead.

A neighbour said that the karaoke group normaly sang Thai pop and southern Thai ballads, but one particular western tune could be heard often  - John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’.

Lord of War unphased in Bangkok as US seeks extradition Times March 7 08

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 Timesonline: Lord of War Arms Dealer faces extradition to US.
From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok

Friday March 7 2008

Viktor Bout2 1

Unphased Victor Grout sits between wide-eyed Thai police: Picture:- Andrew Chant
He sat there in the same orange sweatshirt and khaki pants he had been wearing at the time of his arrest on the 27th floor of the Sofitel in central Bangkok.
And Viktor Vasilyevich Bout, 41, who name is usually preceded by ‘The Merchant of Death’ or ‘Lord of War’, looked as if he did not have a care in the world as he was paraded before the press at Thai police headquarters in Bangkok.
Nowhere to be seen was a mystery British national in his negotiating team released with four other Russians, who has since checked out of the hotel.
In a morning of back-slapping (the US. Department of Justice to the Thai Government, DEA Regional Director Thomas Pasquarello to his counterparts in the Thai police Crime Suppression Division) Bout sat nonchalantly by, though he may well have been kicking his shins under the table for being lured out of sub-zero Moscow to the tropical heat of the Thai capital.
Wedged between wide-eyed police officers Bout sat impassively his hands in cuffs on his lap hidden by a table.  Perhaps he has been reassured by the fact that Thai police have twice stated they will not let him leave Thailand until he has been tried here.
He had been in the Thai capital only four hours when he was arrested in an Executive Club meeting room which he had booked at his hotel with five colleagues and supposed representatives of FARC -Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia.
Arriving on an Aeroflot flight at 10 am Thursday he was arrested at 2 pm while waiting for his guests to turn up.
“The meeting had not even started when police walked in,” a lounge waiter said today.
Actually his new friends were not representatives of FARC but agent provocateurs of the U.S. Drugs Enforcement Administration posing as such.
According to the Justice Department in Washington Bout and his colleague Andrew Smulian, who is on the run,  told DEA agents they had 100 surface to air missiles ready, plus helicopters and armour piercing rockets. He could drop them into Columbia by parachute.
And that was Bout’s speciality.  Using old Antonov aircraft from the former Soviet Union he had a reputation for moving weapons anywhere, anytime in areas where often one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. He had seemingly an inexhaustible supply of Russian made war weapons.
He has been accused of supplying the Taliban, Liberian rebels, and other ‘terrorist’ groups from Sierra Leone and Rwanda and Angola to the Philippines, with a complement of dozens of aircraft and 300 pilots.
In the House of Commons, Peter Hain, called Bout a “chief sanctions buster and…a merchant of death’.
The Belgians have an arrest warrant out for him in connection with his deals in the Congo and he is allegedly banned from international travel, a ban seemingly not enforced.
On the flip side if there is one, his cargo operation has flow mercy missions for the U.N in Africa and his Sao-Taome based ‘British Gulf’ airline flew ordnance into Bagdad for the US occupation forces at a time when US aircraft were still being regularly shot at with Manpads, man portable air defence systems.
Defence experts in both the US and Britain claim he sold between US$30m and US$50m worth of weapons to the Taliban.
He is also accused in the 90s of running arms to former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, then under attack by Taliban forces.
One of his Iliushin-76 transports was forced to land by a Taliban MiG-21. Bout and Russian diplomats tried for a year to negotiate the crews’ release to no avail. On August 16, 1996 the crew overpowered their Taliban guards and returned the plane, plot enough for a Hollywood film.
Had he spoken yesterday Bout would probably have repeated what he said to Ekho Moskvy TV when he admitted delivering cargoes to Afghanistan saying  “What is shipped and how is determined not by the owner of the carrier but by those who arrange the specific shipment.”
Asked about U.S. accusations that he had sold weapons to al-Qaida and the Taliban, Bout simply denied it.
“This looks more like a plot for a Hollywood action movie,” he said.
Critics say the Hollywood movie has already been made and the character played by Nicholas Cage in ‘The War Lord’ is actually him.
In that film the U.S. government is continuously thwarted in its attempts to get the arms dealer.
Bout was lured out of Moscow because it was clear extradition from Moscow was not going to happen. His arrest is seen in some corners as a snub to Putin. Several countries have a claim on Bout including Russia itself. But in Moscow he was a most unwanted wanted man.
The US looks confident it would get the extradition it wants so much. But the longer he stays in Thailand the bigger the hurdles there will be.
An ominous message was given by Lieutenant General Pongpat Chayapan, head of Thailand’s Crime Suppression Bureau, who said Bout would have to face criminal proceedings in Thailand, a message stressed again yesterday by another top Thai policeman.
‘Mr. Swirly’ Christopher Neil, the alleged Canadian paedophile whose swirly image was unravelled and who was tracked down in Thailand last October on an Interpol warrant has yet to be extradited to Canada. 
He has been charged in Thailand and the case could take years to complete sitting on just one day a month.

Pictures: andrew@andrewchant.com

British property tycoon paid out to blackmailer - Irish Daily Mail, March 6th 08

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From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok,
March 5th 2008

An Irish computer hacker who posed on the internet as a young Thai woman to successfully blackmail a British millionaire in Bangkok was arrested by police yesterday in Northern Thailand.

Computer hacker David Gerard Murphy, 42, from Dublin, was seized by police, after he decided 40,000 Euros was not enough for his silence and he went back for more than double that amount.

20080305murphyd02 2

Murphy had emailed the businessman in his office in Bangkok’s business district of Silom posing as a young Thai woman who wanted to introduce herself to him and wished to send a video.

When the businessman accepted and downloaded the video, a virus was introduced which scooped up all his private business correspondence into Murphy’s computer.

The next day Murphy contacted the businessmen threatening to pass on his secrets unless he paid up 2 million Thai baht – 41,688 Euros. The businessman paid up, said Lt.General Virachom Boontaw in Chiang Mai, where Murphy was arrested.

Police are keeping the victim’s name and his secrets confidential, but Murphy would have got away with it had he not got greedy, said Thai police.

Having spent the cash on girls and other entertainment he went back for more, said Police Lt. General Boontaw.

“The first payment was made two years ago. According to the warrant of arrest at the beginning of this month he tried to blackmail the businessman again ordering him to send a further 5 million baht (104,330 Euros).  But this time the businessman went to the police.”

Police arrested the Thai holder of a bank account to which the money was to be sent in the town of Nakorn Sawan, just over halfway halfway between Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

Enquiries led to Chiang Mai where Murphy was found renting a room in the Baan Thai Guest House with a young Thai woman called Surin, aged 23.

Murphy has refused to comment on the matter but admitted he knew something about the businessman in question.

His girlfriend Surin told the police: “I have known him for six months but he never did any work.  He used to sit all day in internet cafes.”

Added Lt. General Boontaw: “We believe he has been financing his good times in Thailand blackmailing businessmen here. That has paid for his drinks, his girlfriend.

“He told us that he graduated from University in computer studies but he has used his knowledge to become a hacker.”

Islam v Sky Kingdom ‘All hail the teapot!’ March 4 2008

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Teapot woman sent to jail in Malaysia

From Andrew Drummond
March 4th

 A member of a persecuted sect nicknamed ‘The Teapot Cult’ yesterday began a two year jail sentence in Malaysia for renouncing Islam yesterday.

The 57-yr-old woman Kamariah Ali was sentenced in an Islamic Shariah court after she refused to respond to a judge’s Islamic greeting.Sky Kingdom teapot3
Muhammad Abdullah a judge of the Islamic Shariah High Court in Kuala Terengganu jailing 57-yr-old Kamariah Ali said the court not convinced that the accused had repented and was willing to abandon any teachings contrary to Islam. 

 Left: ‘All hail the teapot’ - Sky News 2005
“The accused also failed to respond when I greeted her by saying Assalamualaikum  (‘Peace be upon you’)  during the start of the court proceedings. This shows that Kamariah has not repented,”  The Malayian ‘Star’ newspaper reported. 
It was the woman’s second jail sentence for ‘apostasy’ – abandoning her religion. She was sentenced despite the fact that the Malaysian Constitution guarantees freedom of worship.
Kamariah had been charged with ‘apostasy’ – denouncing her religion in an Islamic court which are given separate powers to deal with Islamic only cases.
Kamariah is a member of the ‘Sky Kingdom’ religious sect whose most notable symbol is a cream coloured teapot the size of a two storey house which stood at the commune’s headquarters in Terengganu. The teapot is said to symbolise the ‘purity of water and love pouring from heaven’.
The sect’s leader Ariffin Mohamed, also known as Ayah Pin, who has gone into hiding,  is believed by his followers to be the reincarnation of Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad and Shiva. The sect has members in Britain, USA and Australia and practices religious tolerance and ecumenical dialogue.
The Sky Kingdom’s supporters website carried the following message: “We are the supporters and friends to Ayah Pin. We respect his ideology to educate moslem people in Malaysia and the world. To teach Moslems to respect the people’s right and not to take the law into their own hands like Talibans..We hate Talibans.”
The commune was first attacked by vigilantes then torn down by the Malaysian government in 2005 and most of the followers were arrested. They were charged with being part of a deviant sect, or of renouncing the Islamic faith.
Pending her appeal Kamariah Ali has started serving her sentence in Pengkalan Chepa prison in Kelantan.