BANGKOK, Thailand: A French tourist was gunned down early Wednesday by an off-duty Thai cop after a drunken bar fight in a seedy Bangkok district, police said.
The 41-year-old Parisian was shot dead at a downtown apartment block after an altercation with the police sergeant major who had approached the tourist’s Thai girlfriend.
“They were drunk... they started to argue and then had a fist fight but the policeman couldn’t fight back,” the Chief of Thailand’s Immigration Police Surachate Hakpan told AFP.
“The policeman followed him back to his place and shot him twice,” he said, adding the victim had been in Thailand for several months.
The officer has been arrested and “will be fired... and prosecuted on a murder charge,” Surachate added.
Police are hunting a second suspect seen on CCTV.
Gruesome pictures circulated on Thai media showed the victim lying in a pool of blood in front of a doughnut shop at his apartment block.
Bangkok is one of the world’s most visited cities, famed for its food and racy nightlife, much of it around Nana district where the murder took place.
Thailand has a grim reputation for its gun culture, with drunken arguments, business disputes and soured romances frequently resolved by violence.
French tourist shot dead in Bangkok by off-duty Thai cop
French tourist shot dead in Bangkok by off-duty Thai cop
- The Parisian was shot dead at a downtown apartment block after an altercation with a police sergeant major
- Policeman followed him back to his place and shot him twice
UK upper house approves social media ban for under-16s
LONDON: Britain’s upper house of parliament voted Wednesday in favor of banning under?16s from using social media, raising pressure on the government to match a similar ban passed in Australia.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday he was not ruling out any options and pledged action to protect children, but his government wants to wait for the results of a consultation due this summer before legislating.
Calls have risen across the opposition and within the governing Labour party for the UK to follow Australia, where under-16s have been barred from social media applications since December 10.
The amendment from opposition Conservative lawmaker John Nash passed with 261 votes to 150 in the House of Lords, co?sponsored by a Labour and a Liberal Democrat peer.
“Tonight, peers put our children’s future first,” Nash said. “This vote begins the process of stopping the catastrophic harm that social media is inflicting on a generation.”
Before the vote, Downing Street said the government would not accept the amendment, which now goes to the Labour-controlled lower House of Commons. More than 60 Labour MPs have urged Starmer to back a ban.
Public figures including actor Hugh Grant urged the government to back the proposal, saying parents alone cannot counter social media harms.
Some child-protection groups warn a ban would create a false sense of security.
A YouGov poll in December found 74 percent of Britons supported a ban. The Online Safety Act requires secure age?verification for harmful content.
