Thai police say a Canadian bank robber sitting in a B.C. prison killed his girlfriend and then used an electric saw to dismember her body. But the man who faces the death penalty, if extradited, swears: "I did not kill anyone"

By Asian Pacific News Service

Like many young peasant girls fleeing a life of abject poverty, Suwannee Ratanaprakorn came to seek her fortune at the Thai beach town of Pattaya.

And like many she became an hostess in a bar to serve Westerners ? the types who head for the tropical paradise to forget their past and find new freedom.

Michael Joseph Charles Karas aka Mike Karas aka Morgan Miles aka Mike Morgan was one of those types.

A bank robber by profession, Karas was on day parole in 1994 when he decided not to go back to his halfway house. Armed with a false passport and some C$240,000, that he claims to have won playing Canadian lotteries, Karas took a plane to Thailand instead.

He had by then served 12 of 24 years for withdrawing cash from Canadian banks using fake bombs.

With money and lots of time, Karas, 36, took on the identity of Morgan Miles, a Canadian computer technician who wanted to set up an Internet gambling operation in Bangkok.

Not long after Karas entered Thailand, he made his way to Pattaya, a beach resort city 100 miles southeast of Bangkok.

There the Toronto native, a former student who ran marathons and studied at York, Queens and Simon Fraser University met 25-year-old Suwannee Tukata Ratanaprakorn.

The whirlwind romance rescued Suwanee from poverty, brought her affluence and developed into a common law relationship. Approximately four months after the couple met, Suwannee returned to her home village of Udorn with Karas to tell her father that they had been married, according to reports in a Thai newspaper.

Suwannee's father would later remember his son-in-law as Miles Morgan, a quiet type who always seemed preoccupied.

Except for a few letters, one in which Suwannee said she was going to Canada and one in which she said they were returning to Pattaya, there wasn't much communication between the daughter and her parents.

Karas aka Miles Morgan was at that time also having difficulty getting his Internet gaming business going because local cops were asking for bribes and because he was afraid they would come to know who he really was.

The couple lived in their South Pattaya home in relative obscurity until Sept 24, 1996.

On that morning Suwannee Tukata Ratanaprakorn's dismembered body was found in a field off Soi 17 near Pattaya's Flybird Condo.

She was 27.

Local media spared no details on the crime. 'Her body had been savagely cut into pieces, with her arms, legs and head being found in the field,' a local Pattaya paper reported.

Karas, meanwhile fled back to Canada where he was arrested on Oct 3, 1996 by Vancouver police who threw him in jail for parole violation.

I left to avoid being killed, said Karas in a telephone interview with The Asian Pacific Post from the medium security prison in Mission, B.C. which has been home for the last few years.

He said he fled Thailand because he feared police there would discover his unsavoury background and pin the murder on him.

Since his arrest in 1996, Karas and his lawyers have been fighting a complicated legal battle with the Kingdom of Thailand that is adamant he be returned to stand trial for the murder of Suwannee.

Karas maintains;"I am no angel but I did not kill anyone"

His lawyer, Keven McCullough of Victoria, B.C., told The Asian Pacific Post that the Thai authorities 'do not have a scintilla of evidence against Karas'.

In submissions to the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, McCullough said statements by Thai witnesses were changed to bolster the evidence.

"The minister ... must consider the obvious attempts by the Kingdom of Thailand to fraudulently tailor its evidence in order to secure the committal of Mr. Karas," he told the court.

Two very different stories have emerged so far as to what happened before Suwannee's remains were found on Sept 24, 1996.

According to Karas he had gone to Bangkok the day before, came back, found his girlfriend missing and never saw her alive again.

"I can prove I was in Bangkok," he said.

The next day, while watching a Thai-language TV newscast, he saw a graphic picture of the head and other body parts and knew that it was his girlfriend.

"I went crazy..I can only speculate what happened...she had some baggage...some business background and that may have come back to kill her," he said.

Despite a massive police hunt with his pictures being posted at Thai exit points, Karas managed to give police the slip and returned to Canada. Thai police suspect he fled even before the remains were found.

Karas said that he left two days after the remains were found taking a flight from Bangkok to Vancouver.

Thai police also have a very different series of events running up to the gruesome discovery of Suwannee's remains.

According to their witnesses and investigators, Karas and his wife had checked into the Bay Breeze hotel in Pattaya around Sept 22, 1996.

Hotel staff allegedly told police Karas left the hotel on Sept. 23 at 9 p.m., and returned two hours later. At five the next morning, he checked out of the hotel, carrying a large, heavy suitcase, and boarded a bus.

When a hotel maid went to clean the room later that morning, she reported a strong odour of blood.

Police said they found bloodstains on the mirrors in the hotel room and on the rubber bath mat and found evidence of blood and human fat in the bathtub.

They believe Karas murdered Suwannee in the bathroom, and brought his own towels to clean up the blood, a sign of premeditation, as none of the hotel's towels or bed-sheets were used.

Karas, Thai police claim, killed his girlfriend because he was jealous of her seeing other men, and then used an electric saw to dismember her body.

"Nonsense...I was in Bangkok and I have written telling them that," said Karas.

After Karas was arrested for parole violation on his return to Canada, Thai authorities unsuccessfully tried twice to initiate extradition hearings against Karas.

The Canadian Justice Department said the evidence wasn't enough.

A third attempt went to court in Vancouver.

Karas and his lawyers argued that the evidence by Thai police was fabricated and that the extradition treaty between Thailand and Canada was invalid in this case.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ken Lysyk who heard the case ruled that Karas should not be extradited on a murder charge.

Instead, the judge gave the green light to extradite on the lesser charge of manslaughter. But the judge also said he does not have the jurisdiction to determine whether the extradition treaty between Thailand and Canada applies in this case.

The case is now before the federal justice minister whose decision could trigger another round of legal arguments.

The minister must first seek an assurance from Thailand that it will not execute Karas if found guilty, because the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that delivering accused murderers to a foreign jurisdiction where they might face the death penalty would offend 'fundamental justice', if such assurances are not obtained.

Further the minister and the courts have to weigh reports from the likes of Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department which have said Thailand's police and legal system have a woeful record of human rights abuses and corruption.

With no end in sight, Karas's lawyer is now considering filing a claim to argue that his client should be released from jail as his right to a fair and speedy trial has been compromised.

"I have been in jail for seven years for a case that everyone knows is not going anywhere," said Karas.

He firmly believes the murder of the peasant girl who hooked up with the Canadian bank robber, will never be tried in a Thailand court.