Police have obtained arrest warrants and placed a 100,000 baht bounty on a couple accused of kidnapping and enslaving a young Karen girl after they did not show up for questioning on Monday morning.
Nathee Dangoon, 35, and his wife Rattanakorn Piyaworathamwas, 33, of Kamphaeng Phet province, were taken into custody and then released on bail last Thursday and were scheduled for further interrogation by police.
They are accused of abducting the girl known as Air, whose real name is not being revealed, when she was seven years-old from a farm in Kamphaeng Phet’s Sai Ngarm district on May 20, 2008, and taking her to their house in Muang district.
The girl recently escaped and neighbours took her to Kamphaeng Phet Child and Family Emergency Home, from where she was taken to police.
She told them she was physically abused, sometimes kept in a dog cage, and was also doused with boiling hot water, scalding her skin and leaving many scars on her body.
The couple face seven charges, including slavery, torture, forced labour and child trafficking
Pol Col Akkarasorn Srisupat, superintendent of Muang police station, said he suspected that the couple had fled and left the province. They had made several monetary transactions, he said.
He said investigators had been assigned to track them down and bring them back. He would not say where they were believed to have fled to.
Mr Nathee and Mrs Rattanakorn
The video clip below, uploaded to Youtube by kclisnap, shows the physical condition of the Karen girl.