Thai hostages: PM Srettha Thavisin confirms dozen Gaza captives released

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Srettha ThavisinReuters

A dozen Thai nationals who were being held hostage in Gaza have been released, Thailand’s prime minister has confirmed.

Srettha Thavisin said officials were on their way to collect them, but did not release further details about their identities.

Hamas is thought to have captured 26 Thai citizens in the 7 October attack.

Their release is not part of a wider ceasefire deal which will see 50 Israeli hostages freed from Gaza.

A four-day pause in fighting negotiated by Qatar has been agreed, and hostages – expected to be Israeli women and children – will be released in return for 150 Palestinians detained in Israel.

On Tuesday afternoon a senior Israeli official was reported as saying Hamas could also unilaterally release the Thai nationals believed to be among the hostages.

Confirming the release of 12 people, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin wrote on X: “At the moment, the embassy officials are traveling to pick them up in one hour. It’s likely that the names and other details will be known. Please keep watching.”

Thai nationals were disproportionately impacted by the 7 October attack as around 30,000 have travelled to work in Israel, primarily in the agriculture sector.

At least 30 Thai citizens were killed in the raids.

Families are facing a nervous wait to find out if their loved ones are among those freed on Friday.

Thongkoon Onkaew, the mother of Natthaporn Onkaew, a 26-year-old Thai farmer, said the last time she spoke to her son was on the morning of 7 October, when he was planning to play football with friends.

She said: “I wish my son is one of the first being released. It has been a painful month with no good news.

“I wish my son and other Thai hostages are safe, I thank all the authorities for the effort negotiating the release of Thai nationals.”

Wanida Maarsa, the wife of Anucha Angkaew, 28, said: “I need to call the local representative to check the news. I am now bombarded with messages.

“If my husband is one of the 12, I would be so happy.”

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Chalor, ex-top cop convicted in Saudi jewel theft, dies at 85

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PUBLISHED : 24 Nov 2023 at 20:43

Chalor, ex-top cop convicted in Saudi jewel theft, dies at 85
Chalor Kerdthes, the ex-police commissioner convicted for murder in connection with the high-profile Saudi royal jewellery theft case almost three decades ago, died on Friday at the age of 85. (Photo: Pongpat Wongyala)

Chalor Kerdthes, the ex-police commissioner convicted for murder in connection with the high-profile Saudi royal jewellery theft case almost three decades ago, passed away on Friday at the age of 85.

His death was recorded at Maharaj Hospital in Nakhon Ratchasima at 4.54pm. The cause was heart failure.

Born on Aug 28, 1938 in Bangkok, Chalor was the child of Lt Col Chaem and Thongkum Kedthes. He graduated from the 15th class of the Royal Police Cadet Academy before working in the police station.

He was promoted to Deputy Commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) and then the commander of Phitsanulok Provincial Police Station.

Chalor’s highest position was that of Royal Thai Police Department Chief, holding the rank of Police Lieutenant General (Pol Lt Gen).

He was also a national football team manager and the chairman of the National Football Association.

He first became a public figure when he took part as an investigator in “The Blue Diamond Affair”, the name given to the 1989 stolen Saudi jewellery case.

He and seven other people were charged in 1993 with malfeasance and conspiracy to steal the missing Saudi royal jewels, with abuse of authority, after being implicated in the abduction of gems trader Santi Srithanakhan and the abduction and murder of Santi’s wife and son.

In 2006, the Appeals Court sentenced him to death. He was earlier given life imprisonment by the Criminal Court and stripped of his police rank.

The sentence was reduced to life imprisonment after receiving a royal pardon in 2010, and cut to 50 years in 2011.

He was released from Central Prison in 2013 after his sentence was suspended due to his paralysis.

Chalor was married to Surang Phonlasup, and they had three children.

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Police still hunting shooter in Klong Toey teacher, student killings

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Police still hunting shooter in Klong Toey teacher, student killings
A gang of students were allegedly involved in the recent killing of a teacher and a technical college student at a rival school in Klong Toey district of Bangkok. (Photo supplied/Wassayos Ngamkham)

Police are still hunting for the shooter and his partner who killed a teacher and a technical college student in Klong Toey after finding evidence that they are part of a crime network using revenge as its mission.

Pol Col Wittawat Chinkham, commander of Metropolitan Police Division 5, visited Thung Maha Mek Police Station on Friday morning to interrogate four of all eight suspects of the fatal shooting which had killed a student and teacher in Bangkok’s Klong Toey on Nov 11.

Photos of a gear symbol scarred on some of the suspects’ shoulders by branding iron have circulated the internet, indicating that one gear symbolises one successful mission. 

The four suspects reportedly have gear scars. One of them has four gear scars on his upper left arm. 

Pol Col Wittawat revealed that all eight suspects had firmly denied the allegations during their 48-hour detention. Even though some of them had disclosed important details, they still insisted that they were blameless for the deaths of two victims.

Sirada Sinprasert, a 45-year-old teacher queuing up to use a bank’s ATM on Sunthon Kosa Road. Sirada, who taught at the school, died at the scene, while Thanasorn Hongsawat, 19, the target, was severely wounded and died later in hospital.

Police have investigated the background of gear scars but the information has yet to be revealed due to the case confidentiality. Also, the branding iron used to stamp the gear symbol has not been found,  said Pol Col Wittawat. 

Meanwhile, Pol Maj Gen Theeradej Thamsuthee, head of the MPB’s Investigation Division, pointed out that the gear scar symbolises an undeniable criminal pattern among the suspects and their network. 

One of the suspects has gears branded on his arm to show his affiliation with the gang. A higher number of gears indicates a higher rank within the group. (Photo supplied/Wassayos Ngamkham)

Apart from the arrested nine suspects, police are tracking down the shooter, the bike rider and the mastermind. All three have been issued arrest warrants and are expected to be found soon.

A collection of photos of a student gang in a safe house in Soi Wongsawang 19 in Bang Sue area is believed to be a base of the criminal gang where seniors trained their subordinates to attack students from rival schools. 

In the background, workshop jackets of their institution are hung on the wall. 

Reports said that the two-storey house has been rented by the students for three months, who mostly come to the house at night, according to neighbours. 

About 20-30 students usually gathered in the house but the neighbours reported no nuisance. However, they claimed that they had occasionally heard chanting from the students. 

A neighbour said that the students had sometimes drunk and smoked weed on the second floor. He also confirmed the chanting in the late hours. 

To respond to the emerging criminal acts by the vocational students, Pol Maj Gen Charin Kopatta, deputy commissioner of the MPB, met with chiefs of 14 police stations in risky areas in Bangkok and executives of three vocational institutions on Friday to find solutions for the issue. 

They have considered reintroducing the “Min Buri Model” where officers and school executives offer voluntary work to the students and activities between police and the students to prevent deadly clashes.

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Korean true crime fan murdered stranger ‘out of curiosity’

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Jung Yoo-jung, 23BUSAN POLICE
By Frances Mao
BBC News

A South Korean court has given a life sentence to a true crime fan who told police she murdered a stranger “out of curiosity”.

Jung Yoo-jung, 23, had been obsessed with crime shows and novels and scored highly on psychopath tests, police said.

Fixated with the idea of “trying out a murder”, she used an app to meet an English-language teacher, stabbing her to death at her home in May.

The brutal killing shocked South Korea.

Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty – a request typically reserved for the gravest of offences.

They told the court that Jung, an unemployed loner who lived with her grandfather, had looked for victims for months, using an online tutoring app to find a target.

She contacted more than 50 people and favoured women, asking them if they conducted their lessons at home.

In May, posing as the mother of a high school student who needed English lessons, she contacted the 26-year-old victim, who lived in the south-eastern city of Busan. Her identity has not been disclosed by police.

Jung then showed up at the tutor’s house dressed in a school uniform she had bought online, prosecutors said.

After the teacher let her in, she attacked the woman, stabbing her more than 100 times – continuing the frenzied attack even after the victim had died.

She then dismembered the woman’s body and took a taxi ride to dump some of the remains in remote parkland near a river, north of Busan.

She was arrested after the taxi driver tipped off police about a customer who had dumped a blood-soaked suitcase in the woods.

Police said Jung’s online browsing history showed she had researched for months on how to kill, and how to get rid of a body.

But she was also careless, police said, and took no effort to avoid CCTV cameras, which captured her entering and leaving the tutor’s home several times.

On Friday, a sentencing judge in the Busan District Court said the killing had “spread fear in society that one can become a victim for no reason” and “incited a general distrust” among the community.

Jung, who confessed to the crime in June, pleaded for a more lenient sentence, saying she had suffered hallucinations and other mental disorders at the time.

But the court rejected her argument as the crime had been “carefully planned and carried out, and it is difficult to accept her claim of mental and physical disorder”.

They noted that her statements to police had frequently changed. Initially Jung said she had only moved the body after someone else killed the woman, then later claimed that the killing had occurred as a result of an argument.

In the end, she confessed that her interest in committing a murder had been piqued by crime shows and TV programmes.

While South Korea retains the death penalty, it has not carried out an execution since 1997.

With reporting by Jake Kwon.

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IFRC wraps up Hanoi meeting with calls for better disaster preparedness in Asia Pacific

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ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

The Israel-Hamas conflict, into its seventh week, has displaced more than 1.7 million people in the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF.  

Multiple aid organisations, including the IFRC, have renewed calls for an extended humanitarian ceasefire and pleaded for desperately needed aid to be allowed unimpeded into the devastated enclave.

“(We) express deep concern about the protracted crisis in the Middle East and express solidarity with Palestinian Red Crescent Society and Magen David Adom,” said Tunku Puteri Intan Safinaz, chairwoman of the Malaysian Red Crescent Society, in a statement at the conclusion of the conference. Magen David Adom is Israel’s national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank service.

Dr Hossam Elsharkawi, IFRC’s regional director for Middle East and North Africa, also read to delegates the organisation’s recommendations regarding developments in Gaza.

“Endorsing the truce is insufficient. We must actively call for a permanent ceasefire,” he said.

“It is crucial to issue a statement condemning the violations and denouncing atrocities, specifically the deliberate targeting of civilians, medical personnel and hospitals,” he said.

Other recommendations include advocating for additional access points to Gaza, avoiding forcing people to leave their homes in population transfer scenarios, and providing support to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The aid network said that civilians are paying the “highest price” in the hostilities, and has called on all parties to allow humanitarian organisations to safely access and support those impacted by the crisis.   

Delegates said the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine take away huge amounts of attention and resources from programmes on climate action.

“The biggest challenge is that we have more and more diversified types of humanitarian crises,” said Mr Ma Wenbo, a representative from the Red Cross Society of China.

“We have natural disasters, and we also have man-made ones like war, armed conflicts, etc., which is stretching our resources.”

CLIMATE RISKS

Even as these conflicts divert public attention, the IFRC highlighted the need for the region to guard against growing climate risks.

Delegates at the conference agreed on a call for action for Asia Pacific, which is the world’s most disaster-prone area.

Nearly 45 per cent of the world’s natural disasters occur in Asia and the Pacific, and more than 75 per cent of those affected live within the region, according to the UN.

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No approvals for new massage parlours in Yuhua area since December 2022: Grace Fu

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MASSAGE PARLOURS AROUND “FOR SOME TIME”

Residents and businesses CNA spoke to did not appear to be concerned about the proliferation of massage parlours in the area.

An employee at a nearby bakery told CNA that most of the massage parlours have been operating in the estate “for quite some time”, and that she did not notice any new ones opening recently. 

“I’m not interested in massages so I don’t know much. I only walk past them. Some of them look a bit suspicious, but I haven’t really seen anything happen before,” said the woman, who declined to be named.

A 67-year-old male resident who wanted to be known as Mr Sim told CNA that he has dinner at the nearby hawker centre on most days. However, he has not been approached by anyone from the massage parlours before. 

“I don’t really walk past very often. None of them have been so daring to approach me.”

A shopkeeper who runs a clothing store in the estate said most of the massage parlours have been here for at least a few years. 

“I haven’t seen any women sitting around outside, so I don’t really have any reasons to find the outlets suspicious,” she added. 

A furniture store employee who declined to be named said he personally had no problem with the numerous massage parlours in the area, but could understand why others would feel differently. 

“Maybe they think that there are just too many outlets in one small area. But I think it’s because the rent here is relatively cheaper.”

He said he had not seen anything suspicious in the one-and-a-half years he has been working at the furniture shop. When asked if any of the massage parlours were new, he could not recall any that had opened in the time he had been here. 

“Maybe those people who live in the area who haven’t been here in a while would come back and be surprised at the number of outlets that opened,” he said.

“If there is really an issue, the police should come and investigate.” 

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