Tag Archive for 'Thai'

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

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on March 23, 2008
in General News
. 2 Comments

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

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

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on March 7, 2008
in The Times
. 1 Comment

 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