Condo surveillance cameras picked up this image of the murder suspect.
Boonlua Chatree
A former Syrian commando has confessed to the fatal
stabbing of the New Zealand president of the World Croquet Federation in
his Jomtien Beach apartment.
Mohammad Shanar, 21, was arrested Aug. 27 by Pattaya
and Chonburi police four days after the murder of 58-year-old Charles E.
Jones.
Investigators claim Shanar, who entered Thailand on a
United Nations refugee visa, admitted to stabbing Jones 20 times with a
pocket knife and slitting his throat during a violent argument at the
Kiwi’s Jomtien Complex condo.
Shanar told police he stabbed Jones only after being
threatened at knifepoint with rape. Jones’ close friend, however, told
New Zealand media the Syrian was a “professional thief” who preyed upon
gay tourists. Jones was in the first of six weeks of a vacation after
the World Cup Croquet Championships in London.
Police bring Mohammad
Shanar back to the scene to reenact the muder.
The high-profile murder played out atop New Zealand
newspapers and television broadcasts and on Facebook for a week, with
friends in Pattaya and family members back home saying Jones was a
frequent visitor to Pattaya in between jaunts around the world to
promote croquet, a sport introduced to him by his mother. Single and an
avid supporter of the gay community in Christchurch, Jones was last seen
alive as he went to meet a young male friend after dinner, according to
Stuart Yeatman, a close friend who wrote on Facebook he often found
himself in Pattaya at the same time as his countryman.
Shanar told police he’d met the croquet boss at the
VC Hotel on Aug. 19 and that Jones had invited him back to his apartment
where he propositioned the Syrian with 400 baht for oral sex. When they
met again on Aug. 23, Shanar claims, Jones demanded sex and, when the
former commando refused, Jones pulled a knife on him.
Mohammad Shanar shows
police and the media how he
brutally murdered Charles E. Jones.
Police responding to neighbors’ calls about a violent
argument found the Kiwi’s blood drenched body lying in the middle of the
floor and his apartment ransacked.
When Shanar was finally apprehended at his
girlfriend’s apartment on Soi Chalermphrakiet 19, police also recovered
Jones’ laptop computer, smartphone and watch. The Syrian had also
changed his appearance, cutting his hair and sporting new clothes.
Yeatman, in the Kiwi press, dismissed Shanar’s
accusations and likened the handsome 21-year-old to the title character
in the movie “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” in which Matt Damon befriends
rich gay men in order to steal their fortunes.
Police said the Syrian has bounced around between
Thailand and Malaysia for several years and had been fired from his most
recent job as a chef in Pattaya.
After his arrest, police had Shanar re-enact the
crime for the media.
