Terrified Briton flees 'mafia' on Thai murder island

Thai officers walk near the bodies of two British tourists on a beach in Surat Thani province, southern Thailand. Photo / AP

A British man has fled the Thai island where two fellow backpackers were murdered last week after claiming the "mafia" was trying to kill him.

Sean McAnna, 25, from Shotts near Glasgow, was a friend of David Miller, the tourist whose body was found last Monday on Koh Tao Island with that of Hannah Witheridge.

McAnna claimed two Thai men, whom he believes may have crucial information about the murders, threatened to kill him yesterday while he was drinking at a bar on Sairee Beach near to where the disfigured bodies were discovered.

He fled, took refuge in a nearby supermarket and was able to leave only when police arrived on the scene at about 5am. They questioned the two Thai men but no arrests were made.

"I need to get off this island," a tearful and visibly nervous McAnna told the Daily Telegraph.

"I genuinely thought that was the day I was going to die. I phoned my mum, I phoned my sister. I told her I loved her and that I would try and make it home."

McAnna met Miller last year while both men were living in Leeds. He was the singer and guitarist in a Leeds band called These Fading Polaroids and Miller was an engineering student.

McAnna said he recently returned to Koh Tao, where he had previously spent 18 months living and working as a barman, and had planned but failed to meet Miller on the night he and Witheridge were murdered.

Police have yet to make any arrests for the murders and say they plan to force every man on the island, which has a population of 2000, to provide DNA for testing.

McAnna said he was accosted by two Thai men at Koh Tao's AC Bar. "They just said to me, 'It was you who killed them. You've got two people's deaths on your hands. We know it was you. You're going to hang yourself tonight and we are going to watch you hang. You will die tonight.' So I just ran. I just left and ran," he said.

McAnna took refuge in a supermarket into which the men chased him. They tried to convince him to leave but he refused.

McAnna posted information about the alleged threats on his Facebook page and issued a desperate plea for help. "Thai mafia are trying to kill me. Please help me," he wrote.

After spending much of yesterday in hiding, McAnna travelled to the island's port with British reporters. He left Koh Tao on a ferry around mid-afternoon.Telegraph Group Ltd