Suspects held for killing 2 Japanese in Thailand

Asian Economic News, June 24, 2002

BANGKOK, June 17 Kyodo

A Thai man and a teenager from Myanmar were arrested Sunday on suspicion of murdering two Japanese male tourists who disappeared in Thailand last year, police said Monday.

Police said Picherd Saenkaew, 30, from northeastern Thailand's Sisaket Province, has confessed that he and Aung Kyaw Zaw, 19, from the city of Keng Tung in Myanmar's Shan State, murdered Akinobu Abe, 32, in April last year and Tomohiro Kosha, 30, in July last year, dumping the bodies in Bangkok.

Abe's body was found in Bangkok's Sukhumvit area April 5 last year while the police are still searching for that of Kosha.

Picherd and Aung Kyaw Zaw were arrested at a Sukhumvit gay bar where they were both employed.

Police said Picherd also confessed to killing Chinese-Canadian David Chan with the help of two other Thai men still at large. Chan's body was found last February dumped in Sukhothai Province, some 430 kilometers north of Bangkok.

Thai Police Commissioner General Gen. Sant Sarutanond said the two murderers ''imperil'' the kingdom's tourism.

Abe, of Hokkaido, entered Thailand from Shanghai on Jan. 26 last year. Police said a relative in Japan received an e-mail from him on April 2 last year in which he said he planned to travel to Myanmar the following April 15.

Picherd told a news conference that he murdered Abe at his Sukhumvit apartment following a night out in which the two watched a bout of Thai kick-boxing. He said the two had previously met in Vientiane in 2000.

Kosha, of Kumamoto, went missing on July 12 last year after arriving in Aranyaprathet, where he planned to stay overnight before catching a train to Bangkok the following day, according to his sister, who received an e-mail from him on the day he arrived in the town on the northeastern town on the Cambodian border

Picherd said he met Kosha on the Aranyaprathet-to-Bangkok train and invited him, during the six-hour journey, to stay overnight at his Sukhumvit apartment, where he killed him the following day and chopped up his body.

Picherd told police that he stole and used the victims' travelers checks and credit cards.

Aung Kyaw Zaw, who was also brought before reporters, denied having participated in the actual murders, saying he only helped transport the bodies.

Both Picherd and Aung Kyaw Zaw face a possible death penalty if convicted on the charge of premeditated murder. They have also been charged with counterfeiting and other offenses.