Death Penalty News

Relatives of a 17-year-old Thai girl whose body was found in a suitcase in Pattaya said on Monday (October 12) they want the death penalty for the Australian man accused of killing her, as they say he refused to apologize to them during a hearing at Pattaya Provincial Court. "I'm really angry. Being there in the courtroom, I see it as a life for a life, after the things he did to my child," said Thongchai Donhomla, the 46-year-old father of the victim. Simon Peter Carman faces charges of murder, concealment of a body, moving or destroying a body, and taking a minor for sexual purposes. 

Thai police have arrested a 26-year-old Hong Kong man after seizing about 350 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine, known as "ice," worth an estimated 700 million baht (about HK$165 million, US$21.04 million) at a residential property in Bangkok's Min Buri district. The raid was carried out on Monday night by the Department of Special Investigation's Crime Suppression Bureau and narcotics police at a house on Rom Klao 11 alley in the Saen Saep sub-district. Officers found three large plastic barrels containing the drugs, along with plastic bags, cardboard boxes, electronic scales, blenders, vacuum sealers, suitcases, and plastic containers.

It was the message that Gigi had waited for all night.  She had flirted, sashayed and loitered along Walking St, and in the Buakhao neighbourhood, for hours, hoping to catch a customer from the sea of tourists partying in Pattaya's infamous red-light districts.  But by 4am, her feet ached, her cinched corset was unbearable, and she still hadn't earned a cent from the men stumbling out of the neon go-go bars.  Suddenly, her phone lit up with a message from an old client from Dubai. She had 6 minutes to get to his hotel room. 

BANGKOK — 22 September 2026, The Criminal Court has sentenced “Am Cyanide” to death in her eighth poisoning case, finding her guilty of premeditated murder in the death of Jantharat “Jum” in Phetchaburi province. The court also ordered Am, 39, to pay 60,000 baht in compensation to the victim’s husband, plus 5% annual interest from 15 August 2022 until payment is complete. The judgement was read today in courtroom 712 at the Criminal Court on Ratchadaphisek Road in Bangkok, in black case No. A 856/2568. Prosecutors had charged Am with premeditated murder for financial gain, concealing another offence or avoiding punishment for another offence, and contaminating food, medicine or other consumer products in a way that caused death.

An Australian national accused of murdering a Thai teenager and concealing her body inside a suitcase appeared in a Thai court on Friday, formally entering a not guilty plea to all charges. Simon Peter Carman, 45, faced the Pattaya Provincial Court following his indictment by prosecutors. He has been held at the Pattaya Remand Prison since late June, following an investigation into the death of 17-year-old Tunchanok Donhomla. Carman was formally indicted on multiple counts, including murder, concealing a corpse to hide the cause of death, abduction of a minor over 15 years of age for indecent purposes, and two counts of committing indecent acts on a minor.

British consular incidents involving suspected ‘drug mules’ grew from 80 in 2023 to above 340 in 2025.  The number of British nationals detained overseas on drug trafficking charges has surged more than 4-fold over 3 years, official figures show, alongside a government warning that penalties include life imprisonment and the death sentence.  Consular incidents involving suspected "drug mules" grew from 80 in 2023 to above 340 in 2025, with at least 160 recorded so far this year.  Over 200 UK citizens are presently held in foreign custody for smuggling cannabis originating in Thailand. Around 60% of those caught since 2024 are aged between 16 and 30. 

Hua Hin Provincial Court has sentenced a man accused of killing and robbing a hotel employee in January to death, ruling that the crime was so serious and shocking that there were no grounds for leniency despite his guilty plea. The court handed down the sentence on Tuesday in a case involving the killing of a hotel employee during a robbery in Hua Hin district of Prachuap Khiri Khan province.

This is the seventh judgement among the 15 cases BANGKOK: The Criminal Court on Tuesday (Aug 25, 2026) sentenced Sararat 'Am Cyanide' Rangsiwuthaporn to death for the murder of Darinee 'Fah' Thepwi, marking the seventh judgement among the 15 cases brought against her. Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn is a Thai woman at the centre of a high-profile serial cyanide-poisoning case. She is accused of fatally poisoning multiple friends and acquaintances (mostly for financial motives linked to debts and fraud), with police linking her to about 15 poisonings (14 deaths and 1 survivor) across several provinces from around 2015 to 2023.  Police tied the pattern to heavy online gambling losses and large bank transactions. The cases all involve potassium cyanide allegedly mixed into food, drinks, or other consumables. 

45-year-old Australian Simon Peter Carman, accused of murdering 17-year-old Thai citizen Thunchanok Donhomla, said he acted in self-defense. In an interview with ABC News Australia, recorded at Pattaya Remand Prison, he said he had tried to stop the girl, who, according to him, threatened him with a knife. Carman has been in custody for nearly two months and denies all four charges brought against him. They include murder, concealing a body, and abducting a minor for indecent purposes. If found guilty of murder, he could face the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Sections 365 and 365A of the colonial-era Penal Code still criminalises homosexuality. Penalties include up to 10 years in prison, though no one has been prosecuted yet under the said provisions. Yet, the discriminatory law fosters social stigma and creates a permissive context for abuse. Criminalisation also stands in the way of any meaningful measures for equal opportunities for LGBTQ communities in employment and social life, effectively entrenching discrimination against citizens based on sexual identity and orientation. The bitter irony is that some of the most powerful political bigwigs of the country were openly gay, others lived a lie, and either way, the public did not care about their private lives. Yet the dubious anomaly in the colonial-era law has persisted under successive governments. 

An Australian man has been charged with murder after the body of a 17-year-old girl was found in a suitcase in Thailand. Police in the coastal city of Pattaya said they found Tunchanok Donhomla "stuffed" in the bag, which had been discarded near a railway track, in the early hours of Saturday. Thai police said they arrested Simon Peter Carman at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport in connection with the death as he was allegedly "preparing to flee the country." He denies the charges. In a message issued to the victim's family after his arrest, Carman said: "I feel bad for what happened to your daughter. It was out of my control."

A Bangkok court convicted Yusufu Mieraili and Bilal Mohammed of premeditated and attempted murder for their role in planting a bomb at the popular Erawan Shrine in the capital's commercial heart. The blast tore apart the site where worshippers and tourists had gathered, wounding more than 100 people and leaving the shrine to the Thai representation of Brahma littered with motorbike fragments and singed debris.

Countries across Southeast Asia are moving away from the use of capital punishment. But Singapore remains an outlier. From Vietnam to Malaysia and Indonesia, Southeast Asian governments are narrowing the use of the death penalty and edging, often cautiously, toward abolition.  At present, eight of the 11 Southeast Asian countries retain the death penalty. Only Cambodia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste have abolished it in law. But recent years have seen most of the retentionist states abide by de facto moratoriums on executions and pass new legislation so death is no longer the mandatory punishment for certain crimes.

George Wilson, 23, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is said to have received 9.15kg of methamphetamine from another Briton at a hotel in the red-light area of Bangkok on Monday evening. But vice squad cops are said to have been tipped off about the movements of the drugs gang. Officers swooped on the hotel room at Le Fenix on Sukhumvit Soi 11 and arrested George. In the arrest video, George was heard telling police he had been in Thailand for 'two weeks'. When asked what is in the bag, he says 'I don't know'.

Those found guilty of trafficking more than 500g of cannabis, or more than 1kg of cannabis mixture, may face the death penalty SINGAPORE – A Singaporean on the run – who was arrested in Thailand and then handed over to the Republic’s authorities – has been charged with trafficking almost 5 kg of cannabis. Tan Leng Chong, 50, is accused of conspiring with another man to traffic blocks of vegetable matter, later found to contain at least 4,990.6g of cannabis mixture. Those found guilty of trafficking more than 500g of cannabis, or more than 1 kg of cannabis mixture, may face the death penalty.

A woman in Thailand has been sentenced to death in the first of a string of cases in which she is accused of murdering 14 friends with cyanide. The court in Bangkok found Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn, 36, guilty of putting poison in a wealthy friend's food and drink while they were on a trip last year.

Benny Kee Soon Chuan was allegedly living a life of luxury in Thailand when local authorities arrested him and handed him over to Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau. SINGAPORE: A Singaporean man wanted for alleged links to two cases of drug trafficking was handed a capital charge on Friday (Sep 20), after being deported to Singapore from Thailand. Benny Kee Soon Chuan, 31, is accused of conspiring with Low En Quan Justin to traffic in methamphetamine sometime in early December 2020, when Kee was not in Singapore.

The Thai court has read the verdict in the case of the murder of Colombian Edwin Arrieta at the hands of Daniel Sancho, son of Rodolfo Sancho.  As we were saying earlier this Thursday, the Thai court has sentenced Daniel Sancho to life imprisonment for murdering and dismembering Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta in Thailand.  The court found that there was premeditation and sentenced Sancho to one of the worst sentences, second only to the death penalty. He will also have to pay $119,000 in compensation to Arrieta’s family.

El español Daniel Sancho fue encontrado culpable del asesinato premeditado del cirujano colombiano Edwin Arrieta y de otros delitos relacionados de los que estaba acusado. Fue condenado a cadena perpetua por un juez de Tailandia, quien además fijó una indemnización para la familia de la víctima de 106.000 euros. La Fiscalía pedía la pena de muerte, mientras el acusado defendía que fue una muerte accidental.

La Fiscalía de Tailandia solicita la pena de muerte para el español por el asesinato premeditado del cirujano colombiano Edwin Arrieta el año pasado El español Daniel Sancho asegura estar “preparado para lo mejor y para lo peor” ante la sentencia que determinará el 29 de agosto si es o no culpable del asesinato premeditado del cirujano colombiano Edwin Arrieta en una isla de Tailandia el pasado año. Sancho se enfrenta a una petición de la Fiscalía de pena de muerte.