Crime Suppression police have been asked to look for the Thai wife of the Israeli man suspected of killing a compatriot after she has been mysteriously missing for a year.
Anand Sang-urai, 62, came to the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok on Monday to ask police to help find his daughter, Nantiya Sang-urai, 37. He filed the same request with police in Nonthaburi province on Sunday.
He said his daughter had met Shimon Binton on Khao San Road in Bangkok about two decades ago and both had a son, now 17.
Mr Anand said Biton had told him Ms Nantiya had been arrested in Laos near Nong Khai's border on a drug charge but he doubted whether it was true and worried his daughter, with whom he had lost contact for a year, might have been in danger.
He said his grandson told him that Biton had forced Ms Nantiya out of the house because she had stolen money from him. Again, he doubted his story since his daughter had raised her son alone when Biton had been jailed for murder for 10 years in 2000.
Pol Col Arun Wachirasrisukanya of the CSD said back then Biton had been imprisoned for killing another Israeli man and dumped the body in the Mae Klong River. At that time, Ms Nantiya had been pregnant for three months.
After Biton was released from jail, he took his son from Ms Nantiya, supposedly to be raised in Israel, the CSD superintendent said.
He also said official records had shown Ms Nantiya had never left the country but Biton and his son had visited Laos from Sept 9 to 12 last year. Ms Nantiya had been arrested for a drug offence in Bang Bon, Samut Prakan province, and already been released from jail, Pol Col Arun said.
Police were checking the background of Biton with the Israeli embassy and examining a house that he and Ms Nanthiya had rented in Bang Kruai district, Nonthaburi.
They found that a Russian man had transferred about 200,000 baht from Pattaya to a bank account of the teenager.
Biton, 53, was arrested in a rented house in Nonthaburi's Bang Bua Thong district last Saturday and suspected of killing a 63-year-old former Israeli police officer, Eliyahu Cohen, who was reported missing last Wednesday. A dismembered body was found at the house.
Both Biton and his son were in police custody.
Anand Sang-urai (right) meets Crime Suppression Division superintendents Jirapop Puridej (left) and Arun Wachirasrisukanya (second left) on Monday. (Photo by Wassayos Ngamkham)