Murder hunt at River Kwai
Policeman sought over killers of British couple
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thai security officials say they are hunting a police officer suspected of shooting dead a British couple near the site made famous by the war movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai."
The couple had been arguing with Somchai Visetsingha near the restaurant he owned in Kanchanaburi, 125 kilometers (80 miles) west of Bangkok, in the early hours of Wednesday, a senior police officer told Reuters.
Somchai tried to intervene, but after arguing with the couple himself, offered to drive them to their hotel, he said.
The officer shot the man after a row again broke out on the journey, the woman tried to flee but the detective shot her as well, said the senior policeman, who asked not to be named.
"The male tourist was apparently upset by the way other people in the shop looked at his girlfriend and his jealousy got out of control," Police Major Chavalit Piakaew told Reuters earlier.
The British embassy declined to identify the couple, but British media on Friday identified them as Adam Lloyd, 25 and Vanessa Arscott, 24.
The pair had been due to return to Britain this weekend after spending more than two months in Thailand, according to UK press reports.
Thousand of tourists visit Kanchanaburi every year, lured by the fame of the notorious railway bridge near the border with Myanmar, as well as a Commonwealth war cemetery and beautiful waterfalls.
The bridge over the river was built by Allied prisoners of Japanese forces and immortalized in the 1957 film "Bridge on the River Kwai" starring Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins and William Holden. It was bombed during the war by Allied planes trying to disrupt Japanese supply lines.
About 16,000 Allied prisoners of war and 100,000 Asian laborers died while building the notorious "death railway" between Japan's new territories of Singapore and Myanmar.
This week's killings came after Thailand launched a promotion of its tourist industry. The country hopes to double the number of visitors to 20 million by 2008.
