08:45
Reporter
Police on the Thai island of Koh Samui ruled that Kevin Attew, 57, from Aldershot, Hants, had committed suicide after his Thai girlfriend said that was what he planned to do. Police said he drowned himself in a lake behind the resort area of Chawaeng.
Attew's body was found last Tuesday.
But today a murder inquiry was launched after pictures taken by his best friend showed that he had been beaten to death first. Also, as the man-made lake was less than 30 centimetres deep – it seemed a poor venue for an allegedly suicidal man when the Gulf of Thailand was only yards away.
Londoner Crispin Paton-Smith, a friend of Attew, said: "I was appalled to hear the verdict of drowning. It was a no brainer. Kevin was beaten to death and his body was left on dry land for quite a while before being put in the lake."
Paton-Smith a former gunner in the Royal Artillery said: "I have spoken to his girlfriend and she continues to insist he committed suicide. He did not unless he beat himself to death. He would have had to dig a hole to drown himself.
"Kevin ran a very successful bar and was the sweetest man in the world. He had no enemies." Police on Koh Samui tend to play down all crime on the island for fear of upsetting its lucrative tourist industry.
A spokesman for the Regional Police in Surat Thani on the mainland in southern Thailand said: "We are treating this as murder and have asked for the body to be sent here for a full autopsy."
Posted in: 
0 comments:
Post a Comment