From The Provinces
This story is not really about me, at least in the beginning it wasn't… Well, let me get to it, mind you I'm not much of a writer so I hope you can follow the plot. The story, as so many is of course about a foreign guy and Thai woman, I'll
refer to them as Mr. K and Miss P.
I met Mr. K at the local gym. At said gym Mr. K who is married to his German wife meets Miss P and they start a gig relationship which goes on for about 4 months.
Mr. Kim felt guilty towards his German wife and decided to end the gig thing with Miss P. We are talking October 2010 now. Now Miss P was not impressed by Mr. K ending the relationship… she had probably thought there would have
been more in it for her financially wise. <A gig "relationship" in Thailand is where there is sex and no expectation of money – Stick> Miss P runs a tour office, a bus and a few minivans. Mr. K told me
that she never asked for money but did tell him that her bus and minivans are in need of repair. I told Mr. K that this is a indirect way of asking for some financial support. Mr. K has only been here for 2 years and is by no means as experienced
as we are when it comes down to dealing with Thais.
Anyway, the day he tells her that the relationship is over she gets all threatening on him, threatens to tell his wife (not an issue since he had already told her himself) and goes on telling him that he won't be having a good time in
Thailand anymore.
Mr. K came to see my wife and I and tells us this. My wife and I advise him to let it be, ignore her and forget about it. He seemed to understand…or so we thought !
A few weeks later he tells me that he would like to be friends with Miss P, his Western way of thinking told him that a friendship could be possible. I strongly advised him not to do so and just let it be… Well, he didn't listen to
this advice and did his own thing. Silly German man ;-).
This is where it actually starts, without anybody knowing he made an appointment with Miss P to go out for dinner to talk about being friends. This is November 2010. They meet at a hotel where he parks his bike and uses her car to go to a
restaurant way out in the middle of nowhere. They had finished their tete-a-tete dinner and walked back to her car, got in the car and suddenly out of nowhere 2 masked guys jump in the backseat of the car and demand their belongings. Both Mr.
K and Miss P hand over their belongings. The 2 masked men blindfold and tied Mr. K up and ordered Miss P to start driving the car to an unknown location. Upon arriving at location, they are ushered into a room and told to lay down on the floor.
They ask for the PIN code of his ATM and proceed to take several trips to ATM machines to withdraw money and transfer money from Mr. K's account into Miss P's account. At that time there are 4 people involved, the 2 guys who jumped in
the car and apparently 2 other guys who were waiting in the room where they were being held. This ordeal took about 20 hours. Each time they went to the ATM, Miss P had to join them(?). Later during the police investigation and CCTV footage it
shows that each ATM transaction was done by Miss P. while Mr. K was being held in the room, being guarded by the 2 other guys!
About 20 hours later they were released. She gets her car back and her belongings? Mr. Kim gets his mobile back but without the SIM card. They drive back to the hotel where he had parked his bike the previous day. Miss P drops him off and
tells him that it's better not to file a police complaint because the "gangsters" will come and kill him.
Now Mr. K is all shaken up by the ordeal and contacts me. He had already contacted his bank and they told him that the money transferred out of his account ended up in a certain Miss P's account. He became suspicious about this and asked
me if I could join him going to the police station to translate for him since he speaks no Thai and limited English. So off we go!
The police took it very seriously and did a great investigation. I know, it sounds hard to believe but they really did a good job and gathered lots of evidence and it soon became clear that Miss P might well be the master mind behind this robbery / kidnapping. An arrest warrant was issued against her, she was arrested, sent to the prosecutor's office and she was released on bail. Miss P denies everything and claims to be a victim herself. Evidence in court tells a different story though!
Mr. K decides to take a lawyer to assist him with the proceedings. I act as translator. The lawyer tells him that the case will go to court in November 2011.
So, last November the court case started. The prosecutor calls Mr. K to the stand and interrogates him. It was very odd though that the prosecutor asked questions to Mr. K making it sound as Mr. K himself is the criminal! So after the interrogation of the prosecutor, Miss P's lawyer starts to interrogate Mr. K and really goes hard at him. This is of course his job. On the second day in court which was half way through December, two witnesses (investigating police officers) in Mr. K's favour are called to the stand. They also seemed surprised that the prosecutor was leaning towards believing Miss P's story even though there is plenty of evidence that shows that her story is very difficult to believe!
January 2012, third day in court and finally time to interrogate the accused, Miss P, the prosecutor doesn't find it necessary to ask her any questions! Luckily Mr. K's lawyer had done his homework and asks all the critical questions. The judge tells all parties involved that on 9 March a verdict will follow. So far so good, except that it's obvious that the prosecutor is not doing his job to say the least…?
Now where it gets really interesting… Miss P went out of her way to make life difficult not only for Mr. K but also for the police, Mr. K's lawyer and myself.
Miss P and yes the prosecutor (not the one handling the case but a croonie of him) himself go to the police station and file a complaint against Mr. K for libel… Then they take it to the next level and Miss P and her prosecutor buddy file another bogus complaint against : Mr. K's lawyer, Mr. K and myself for… yes Stickman, hiring a hitman to kill her! Complete and utter bollocks of course! The police notice that this story is not true so don't really follow up on it. Miss P must have felt that things were not going her way and decided to protest in front of the court house slandering the lawyer's name, the police, Mr. K's and mine… The lawyer (a highly respected one) decided that it's time to take action, so he and 50 other local lawyers also protested in front of the court against said prosecutor because they have evidence that Miss P and the prosecutor are more then just "good friends" and that he abused his authority. They demand that said prosecutor leaves town and needs to be put under investigation. This happened and the day after he received an order from the Prosecutor General's Office in Bangkok and he had to leave his position here and was sent to a non-active post in Bangkok while the investigation takes place.
At the moment the provincial police is looking into the so called hiring a hitman story, because during her protest action in front of the court Miss P said that the town where she and the prosecutor originally filed the complaint were not doing their jobs. The provincial police won't do much either because they all know that she is filing false complaints to draw the attention away from the original robbery / kidnapping case against her.
Maybe all a bit late since the verdict is expected.
Anyway, note to self : To not act as a translator for anybody :-). Now the Lawyers, Mr. K and myself are filing complaints against Miss P and the prosecutor for libel and filing false statements. The police are doing the same :-). So I think after the 9th when the verdict is due regarding the robbery / kidnapping case she will go to court for months / years to come, slandering us might be ok, but I think she went too far with slandering the local lawyers and police.
Postscript
She was convicted to 15 years and 9 months and has to pay 340.000 in damage to Mr. K. Of course she appealed the verdict and is once again out on bail:- / Confused!
Stickman's thoughts:
It's great to hear that the police did such a good job and that justice eventually prevailed because things could have really gone awry. The kidnapped fellow could easily have been killed!
This story really does demonstrate the danger of getting involved with the wrong type of people!
