Frightened British Tourist Says Thai Mafia May Have Killed The Two British Tourists In Koh Tao

KOH TAO : --  Thai police now said they have obtained  photograph of  two Thai men while sexually harassing the British tourist Hannah  Witheridge  and assaulting her friend David Miller while trying to protect her at a beach bar, another British man who was friend to David  recalled the nightmare on the night of the murder to British newspapers today of  being threatened with life by Thai mafias who tried to force him to admit to the murder of the two victims. 

He  fled the Thai island where two British backpackers were murdered last week after claiming the “mafia” was trying to hang  him, according to the UK-based The Telegraph newspapers.

The papers said Sean McAnna, 25, from Shotts near Glasgow, was a friend of David Miller, the tourist whose body was found last Monday on Koh Tao island along with that of Hannah Witheridge.

Sean McAnna, 26, from, Shotts, Lanarkshire, made the allegations on Facebook at 4am after he fled and took refuge in a 24 hour convenience store on the island and posted a picture he took of his alleged pursuers.

He also identified whom he believed was one of the killers.

And he asked for Sky Television to phone him. McAnna was quickly given consular advice and protected by friends until he caught a ferry off the island later in the day. His posts were taken down.

Sean McAnna later revealed how he slept all night in the jungle and then for a while around 7 am this morning under a snooker table in a bar.

In the early hours of the morning he had been drinking in a beach bar when he was accused by two Thais of being the killer he was allegedly the guitarist in a group of people singing on the beach on the morning of Hannah and David’s murders.

You have blood on your hands, they said adding that he should be strung up and hanged from a tree.  He fled the bar and took refuge in the convenience story pursed by the two men, he said. That’s when he took the picture.

“So I just ran. I just left and ran.”

Mr McAnna claimed that two Thai men, who he believes may have crucial information about the murders, threatened to kill him in the early hours of Monday morning while he was drinking at a bar on Sairee beach near to where their disfigured bodies were discovered.

He fled, took refuge in a nearby supermarket and was only able to leave when police were called and arrived on the scene at around 5am. They questioned the two Thai men but no arrests were made.

He later posted on his Facebook recalling the nightmare in Koh Tao trying to flee from the Mafia who he said might have information.

With those two men still at large, Mr McAnna said he spent the day in hiding before fleeing Koh Tao fearing he could be killed if he stayed.

“I need to get off this island,” a tearful and visibly nervous Mr McAnna told The Telegraph during an interview conducted inside the back of a taxi before he departed.

“I genuinely thought that was the day I was going to die,” Mr McAnna said. “I genuinely thought that this was me dead. That I was gone.”

“I phoned my mum, I phoned my sister. I told her I loved her and that I would try and make it home. I said that if this was going to be the last conversation that we had then it was a really sad one to have but she’s been great and I love her.”

Mr McAnna met Mr Miller last year while both men were living in Leeds. He was the singer and guitarist in a Leeds band called These Fading Polaroids and Mr Miller was an engineering student. Both lived in the Hyde Park area.

Sean McAnna was a friend of David Miller.

Mr McAnna said he recently returned to Koh Tao – where he had previously spent 18 months living and working as a barman – and had planned but failed to meet Mr Miller on the night he and Ms Witheridge were murdered.

Locals appear reluctant to discuss the case, apparently fearing reprisals from mafia-style families who are said to control Koh Tao.

Mr McAnna said he believed it was people linked to one such group who threatened to kill him. At around 2.30am he was accosted by two Thai men at Koh Tao’s AC Bar, a beach front nightclub where Mr Miller and Ms Witheridge had been just before they were murdered.

“They just said to me: ‘It was you who killed them. You’ve got two people’s deaths on your hands. We know it was you. You’re going to hang yourself tonight and we are going to watch you hang. You will die tonight.’” 

“So I just ran. I just left and ran,” he said.

Mr McAnna said he did not know if the men who threatened him were directly involved in his friend’s murder. However, he did believe they had key information about the murders and were attempting to make him a “scapegoat” for the killings.

“I think they needed a scapegoat. I think they might know who it was. They need a scapegoat and they don’t want it to be locals. They want it to be a westerner. So if I kill myself here, if I hang myself here, then it is easy to say: ‘See, it was him.’”

Mr McAnna posted information about the alleged threats on his Facebook page at around 4am on Monday and issued a desperate plea for help. “Thai mafia are trying to kill me. Please help me,” he wrote.

He said he also spoke to Foreign Office officials in London over the telephone. After being taken from the supermarket by Thai police, Mr McAnna said he spent the rest of the night hiding from the men he feared were going to kill him in the jungle.

“I was scared s*******. I was really scared. So I kept moving every thirty minutes in case anybody had seen me. I would move from one part, to the next part in case there was anyone close that had seen me and could send someone.”

Mr McAnna rejected the men’s claims that had been involved killing his friend and Ms Witheridge. “Of course I had nothing to do with it.” Prachum Ruangthong, the police chief responsible for Koh Tao, confirmed that Mr McAnna had been asked to provide DNA samples as part of investigations into the murders but was not considered a suspect.

The police chief denied receiving reports of death threats against Mr McAnna even though he met him on Monday morning and told the British traveller: “I am sensitive about your feelings. You don’t worry, ok?”

Two Thai men were questioned about the incident but they were not arrested. 

The police chief said he would guarantee the Briton’s security while he remained on Koh Tao.

After spending much of Monday in hiding, Mr McAnna travelled to the island’s port with a group of British reporters at around 2.30pm.

He left Koh Tao on a passenger ferry at 3.10 pm.

The 25-year-old Scot vowed never to return to an island that markets itself as a paradise for divers and partiers. “I’m done here,” he said, adding that he would only feel truly safe once he had flown out of Thailand. “Something could still happen to me in the next 24 hours.