BURI RAM: Seven young men, aged 14-22, were charged with the gang rape of a girl aged 13 in a school's toilet in Ban Kruat district late Friday night.
Local police initially charged the four suspects under 18 years of age on Saturday while the interrogation of the suspects and the victim were underway.
The girl's parents filed a complaint that she had been lured by the seven men into a toilet at a school in tambon Bung Charoen at about 11pm on Friday, where she was then gang-raped.
The four suspected minors were brought to the child and juvenile court of Buri Ram because police could detain them for only 24 hours. The other suspects, aged over 18, were held at the Ban Kruat police station.
No relatives sought their temporary release on Sunday. Pol Capt Thongrat Khiaosanam of the Ban Kruat station was to bring the three older suspects to the Nang Rong court on Monday to have their detention extended.
Local police had yet to interrogate the minor suspects and the victim in the presence of social workers. Police were also waiting for a medical report on the girl after she was examined at Ban Kruat Hospital.
At least one of the three older suspects reportedly confessed to having sex with the girl, but said she was willing. Other suspects said they were just in the scene of the crime but did not commit it.
Ploy, the wife of one of the suspects, on Saturday told police that the victim was the girlfriend of a 16-year-old who was among those arrested. The girl had sent a message to her boyfriend, asking him to pick her up because her motorcycle had broken down, Ploy said.
Her husband did not rape the girl, she said, and her family would be in trouble if he was jailed because he was the sole breadwinner and they had a ten-month-old baby.