Tao Rape Story: A court in Surat Thani province on Friday issued arrest warrants for administrators of two popular Facebook pages for reporting what the police decided was false information concerning a rape claim by a British teenager.
The information reported by Samui Times and CSI LA pages had tarnished Thailand’s reputation, according to the authorities.
The arrest warrants were issued after police concluded that the allegations by the 19-year-old Londoner, that she was drugged, robbed and raped during her vacation on Koh Tao in June, were groundless.
Police ended their investigation into the claim, closing a case set up after the woman’s mother alerted the UK police about the alleged rape.
Thai police visited the island that was the scene of brutal killings of two British backpackers in 2014 to gather evidence about the rape claim.
The police said they had concluded that the evidence and accounts from witnesses led them to believe the claim was false.