Police pin hopes on DNA test results

Nearly two weeks since the gruesome murders of two British backpackers on Koh Tao, the killers are still at large. Worse still, police have pinned all their hopes on the DNA test results of samples they have collected from almost everybody on Koh Tao, to see if they match those found on the victims.

Police yesterday intensified their interviews with people on Koh Tao, off Surat Thani province, in a bid to learn about the last hours before the killings.

For now, police believe the murders were sexually motivated, as none of the victims' belongings were missing, Pol General Kiattipong Kaosam-ang, a provincial police commander, said yesterday.

"The motivation for the attack is rape, because we found the belongings intact on the victims' bodies," he said.

Referring to a cigarette butt found near the bodies of the victims, Kiattipong said the attackers might have been smoking when the victims walked by. The attackers, who probably used drugs, then followed them, raped the woman and killed the man.

He said about 50 per cent of the investigation had been completed. Police are now waiting for results of the DNA tests. If any matches are found, police can issue an arrest warrant for the suspect, he said.

As of yesterday, police had collected about 200 DNA samples from people on Koh Tao, mostly immigrant workers.

Meanwhile, a police source said that of the 200 samples, results of 34 were available and none of them were found to match those found on the victims. Police expect results of the other tests soon.

The DNA samples were collected from many groups of people on the island, including Thai employees who were near the crime scene, the victims' friends and those seen on security cameras on that day. There are still some people we are looking for, he said.

Among the difficulties in looking for the killers is that there are about 4,000 migrant workers from Myanmar on the islands and not all of them are registered. The killers may already have left the island, Kiattipong said.

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Police pin hopes on DNA test results