'Myanmar town' in fear as torture follows murder

Single-storey shophouses advertised for rent are now common in what was once a packed Myanmar community in Ranong's Muang district. Some families have left their belongings -- including a bicycle, in one instance -- as if in a hurry to leave the country.

A few days after the police arrested four Myanmar migrant workers over the brutal stabbing murder of a 17-year-old student in a nearby alley on Sept 28, at least three households moved back to Myanmar.

Now, two months later, all is quiet. Stories from the suspects, relayed by their friends and family, that they were tortured into confessing have spread like wildfire through the migrant worker community.

Visits in the night by police investigators have also fuelled fears that their children might be snatched for questioning.

Teenagers no longer occupy gaming cafes or play pool. Billboard signs calling for justice that were once placed in front of the temple near the alley were removed last Sunday.

"The atmosphere has changed," said Attaporn Emwat, the owner of a shrimp processing factory.

"People usually gather outside their houses for a conversation, but now they close their doors by 7pm. They reckon the police will come at night to take their family members away."

Police initially summoned two Myanmar migrants for questioning, but released them after finding they were not involved in the murder of Orawee Sampaotong. Later they arrested four Myanmar suspects who now remain in Ranong prison.

In the southern province which shares its western border with Myanmar, and where shopping malls have signs in Myanmar script, is a community where residents live in fear that one day, they too will fall victim to what they believe to be false accusations by the police.

"Everyone knows that they [the four suspects] didn't do it," said Mr Attaporn. "We just hope they can come back home."

The confession

According to the official statements that Moe Zin Aung, 19, Zaw Lay, 25, Mang Sane, 20, and Kyaw Soe Win, 18, gave to police officers on Oct 25, the four confessed to taking part in the murder. Their lawyer is casting doubt on the confession, and has said two of the suspects misrepresented their age for work and should be detained in a juvenile centre instead of a prison. Moe Zin Aung is listed as 15 and Kyaw Soe Win as 14 in their Myanmar household registrations.

According to the four separate confessions -- which have near-identical wording -- the suspects were hanging out on a bench in a temple at 7pm. When they saw Orawee walking towards the temple gate, Zaw Lay approached her and said "How are you?" in a harassing manner. Orawee, who was known as Apple and was of Myanmar descent, responded by insulting him.

When Orawee was inside the alley, the four followed her and exchanged insults. She was punched, hit with a bamboo stick and fell down.

As the victim was trying to get to her feet, Moe Zin Aung used his left hand to hold the victim's shirt and pulled out his knife. Orawee scratched him under his chin and on his side.

Moe Zin Aung stabbed her in the right shoulder, ear, neck and part of her torso. Mang Sane then hit her with the stick and she fell to the ground. As Orawee was trying to get up, Moe Zin Aung stabbed her again. While the victim was lying face down, Moe Zin Aung stood over her and stabbed her in the back.

Moe Zin Aung said he stabbed the victim multiple times because he was angry that she scratched his face. He later dropped the knife into a canal 200m from his house, according to the confession.

A day after she was murdered, Orawee's body was sent for an autopsy at Ranong Hospital's Department of Forensic Medicine, where forensic doctor Krittin Meewuttisom identified a total of 17 stab and incision wounds.

Dr Krittin told Spectrum that most of the wounds were found on Orawee's back. He found no evidence of blunt force injury, apart from a brush-type abrasion on her forehead resulting from contact with a rough surface.

On Oct 4, during the funeral service for Orawee, which was widely reported and televised by local media, a Myanmar woman claimed she was possessed by the ghost of the victim, and that the murderer was one of the teenager's school classmates.

The woman surprised guests by screaming in a loud voice, her body shaking. She said in Thai that the killer was a Thai woman, and pointed her finger towards the classmate. The mother of the classmate denied that her daughter was the murderer. 

The arrests

The four suspects, who have each lived in Thailand for more than seven years, were arrested between Oct 20 and 24. Moe Zin Aung was arrested on Oct 20 along with his brother, who was later released, at a fishing port. The other three were arrested separately.

According to a statement Mr Attaporn gave to the police on Monday, the shrimp factory owner saw Moe Zin Aung carrying shrimp and ice at the factory from 5pm until 7.45pm. The time of the murder was 7.35pm, according to police.

Video footage from the security camera in front of Mr Attaporn's factory, however, showed Moe Zin Aung working from 6-7pm. Mr Attaporn noted in his statement that the footage's time stamp was half an hour later than what he recalled.

He later saw all four suspects sitting in front of a nearby shop at 11pm.

Mr Attaporn told Spectrum that before the arrests, police officers asked him if any of his crew were missing. He gave police a picture of Moe Zin Aung, which he obtained from the teenager's mother.  

"At first I couldn't eat or sleep," he said. "I gave them only one picture, and it turned out that all four were arrested."

Mr Attaporn described Moe Zin Aung as a "good boy" who always offered help when he wasn't out at sea, which was usually 23 days a month. "He often brings me squid and spends most of the time playing games and listening to music," he said.

As of press time, lawyers were in the process of retrieving information from Mr Attaporn's security camera. Another security camera in front of a house a few metres away from Mr Attaporn's factory also showed two of the suspects about the same time as the murder.

The owner of the camera told Spectrum that upon examining the footage, police confirmed that the two suspects were indeed present.

"I asked him [the officer] how they could kill someone when they are walking right here. He replied by saying he didn't know," said the owner.

Do this, not that

The torture device was crude but effective, the suspects said. They placed a rope around Kyaw Soe Win's neck and attached it to a stick. They then twisted the stick, and with every twist the rope got tighter.

The alleged police torture, along with other physical assaults, was what Kyaw Soe Win and three other Myanmar suspects say inevitably led to the forced confession on Oct 25.

"They asked me if I killed the girl. I said I didn't do it, and then I was punched in the neck," Kyaw Soe Win told Spectrum at Ranong Prison via telephone from behind a glass window. "They accused me of killing her and called me a liar."

Speaking in Thai on behalf of the other suspects, Kyaw Soe Win said they were also strangled and threatened with a gun. Kyaw Soe Win claimed he was suffocated with a plastic bag over his head, and Mang Sane was kicked in his genitals.

They were blindfolded and beaten when they refused to confess, he said.

His accounts of the torture, which he claimed took place both during the trip to the police station and at the station itself, were supported by the relatives of all four. 

During the interview, Kyaw Soe Win alleged that the words written in the statements were not their own but those of the police conducting the interview. They were required to nod throughout the interview and sign their names at the end of the process.

"The police taught me to how to stage a re-enactment, and when I did it the wrong way, they would correct me," said Kyaw Soe Win.

Junjira Junpaew, a lawyer assigned to the case by the Human Rights Lawyer Association, said the Oct 27 re-enactment was based solely on the confessions and not evidence.

"We do not know what evidence the police have in order to lay charges against them, but we believe they [the four suspects] were not the wrongdoers because we have enough evidence to believe that the suspects were not at the crime scene," she said.

In a separate interview, Ei Ei Soe told Spectrum that police took her son Moe Zin Aung into a mangrove forest before the police station. An officer tied his hands and feet and, with a gun at the back of Moe Zin Aung's neck, threatened to shoot him if he did not confess.

"He said, 'I have your mum and three siblings. If you don't confess I will kill you all,' " she recalled her son as saying. "Whenever I visit him [in prison], he doesn't speak the same and often forgets things. I think something might have happened to his brain."

The prosecutor has until Jan 17 to decide whether to charge the suspects. In this case, police can request a court order for several successive 12-day detentions, and they can be held for a maximum of 84 days without charge.

Forensic evidence

Ranong police asked Dr Krittin to perform forensic examinations on Oct 21 and 26 on the four suspects in order to identify any physical signs of struggle.

What the police were particularly interested in was the scar on the left side of Moe Zin Aung's face, which authorities claimed in previous media interviews was a result of the attack on Orawee. Moe Zin Aung's mother told Spectrum her son had sustained several wounds throughout the past year, due to work and falling off a bicycle.

"There is no evidence to confirm that the scar on the left side of Moe Zin Aung's face was caused by fingernail marks," said Dr Krittin, adding that the scar had already healed. Mr Attaporn, the shrimp factory owner, confirmed that Moe Zin Aung had the scar before the day of the murder.

Dr Krittin found no signs of ligature strangulation -- meaning that there were no wounds indicating pressure applied by an object. Instead, he found scabbed linear abrasions -- typically caused by fingernails -- on the neck of three suspects: Mang Sane, Moe Zin Aung and Kyaw Soe Win. Zaw Lay had scratches on his arm, which his mother told Spectrum was a result of police dogs.

Dr Krittin said the scratches on all three suspects occurred at roughly the same time. They were also recent, occurring during the past three to five days. Dr Krittin's statement suggests that the wounds occurred while the suspects were in police custody.

It is unclear whether police have found evidence linking the four suspects to Orawee's murder. Ranong police declined to disclose certain details about the case to Spectrum, claiming they did not want to jeopardise the ongoing investigation.

Orawee's mother could not be contacted.

The knife

On the night of Oct 21, three weeks after the murder and the day after his arrest, four police officers took Moe Zin Aung to his house and left with two knives. His mother, Ei Ei Soe told Spectrum the plainclothes officers did not have a warrant or identify themselves.

After two attempts, authorities found the murder weapon in a canal near the house on Oct 23. According to Ei Ei Soe's statement to police, an eight-year-old boy who was there during the retrieval described the knife as being about the length of the palm of a hand with a black handle. She later claimed, after seeing pictures of the knife in news reports, that it was the same one police took from her house.

Dr Krittin said the key to finding the murderer lies in the DNA on the knife, which the police retrieved from a canal.

He said, however, that there is a high possibility the DNA would have been destroyed due to factors including the amount of time that had passed and the pH value of the water.

"If no blood stains are present, a random sampling may be conducted, but there is a low possibility the DNA would still exist," he said.

Eight days after Moe Zin Aung's arrest, Ei Ei Soe met her son on Oct 28 at Ranong police station, along with lawyers and representatives from the Myanmar Embassy. During what police say was a private meeting, the suspects' lawyers had asked them to write down a brief account of the alleged torture they suffered following their arrests.

The four suspects claimed they did not kill Orawee and that they were tortured into confessing, according to the statements seen by Spectrum.

Pol Lt Col Wuttipon Dintong, an investigator involved in the case, declined to talk about specific details related to the case, but he denied the suspects were tortured into confessing.

"We stopped using unlawfully obtained evidence a long time ago. Our advancement is not a result of whether the suspects are jailed or set free," Pol Lt Col Wuttipon said. 

He said the written statements were prepared for the suspects to sign, although Kunanya Songsamuth, a lawyer with the Surat Thani office of Diocesan Social Action, said that the suspects wrote the statements by themselves. Ms Kunanya is one of the lawyers providing pro bono legal assistance to the suspects who was present during the meeting that day.

Ms Kunanya said the confessions have not been retracted, but the suspects have the right to do so if they are committed to stand trial. She added that under Thai law, any evidence obtained through torture must be ruled inadmissible.

Sense of disappointment

When Ei Ei Soe moved from Myanmar's Mandalay province to Thailand in 2005, she hoped to start a new life with her three children, free from her abusive and alcoholic husband. The 35-year-old moved from Songkhla to Ranong four years ago, and she now works at a squid pier where fishermen unload their catch.      

Last month, she sent two of her daughters and her mother back to Myanmar "because the situation is not safe".

Police arrested two of her sons, and she was not able to see Moe Zin Aung for eight days after his arrest.

"I thought he was dead," she said through a translator. "I know my son didn't do it, and if Thailand has enough justice, I believe 100% that he will be released. It hurts so much to see him [being physically assaulted].

"I understand the police have a responsibility, but that responsibility does not include finding a scapegoat."

The arrests are affecting all four families financially, with Mi Toh, Mang Sane's mother, two months behind on her water and electricity bills. Her husband was injured after falling off a fishing boat and is currently unable to work, forcing her to sell her clothes to feed her five remaining children.

It only takes half an hour from Myanmar to Ranong by boat, and families often come seeking higher pay in the seafood industry. In the seven to 10 years that the four suspects' families have lived in Thailand, they say they have never been taken advantage of, resulting in a largely positive experience of the country.

"But since my children were arrested, I don't think Thailand is a good place any more," said Ei Ei Soe.

"When my son is out, we will move back to Myanmar because I am afraid that something like this will happen again. The safest thing is to go back to Myanmar."