Thai murder: British man says he was targeted by gangsters

Wednesday 24 September 2014

A young British man says he fled the Thai island of Koh Tao because he was threatened by local gangsters looking to frame someone for the brutal murders of Jerseyman David Miller and a young woman from the UK last week.

Sean McAnna, who was a friend of Mr Miller, told reporters in Thailand that a local bar owner and another man had made veiled threats to him.

It has been more than a week since the bodies of Mr Miller and Hannah Witheridge (25) were found on a beach on Koh Tao. The police have no suspects, but have said that they believe that more than one person was responsible.

The Times reported that Mr McAnna – who had been working in a bar at the diving resort island - told local journalists in Thailand that he was approached by the two men while sitting in a bar close to the murder site.

He said: “They just said to me: ‘It was you who killed them. You’ve got two people’s deaths on your hands. We know it was you. You’re going to hang yourself tonight and we are going to watch you hang. You will die tonight.’

“So I just ran. I just left and ran. They wouldn’t have shot me. They would have taken me up into the hills and hung me to make it look like I’d hung myself.

“I think they might know who it was. They need a scapegoat and they don’t want it to be locals. They want it to be a westerner. So if I kill myself here, if I hang myself here, then it is easy to say: ‘See, it was him’.”

Dozens of Thai police have arrived in Koh Tao to work on the investigation – they say that they are prepared to carry out DNA tests on every person on the Island to try to find the murderers. The latest to be questioned are three Thai men who work on the boats that carry people to the island, who were there the night of the murders.