Full Moon Party Critic Shot In Thailand
Reported by News Editor
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Submitted 03-04-09 12:35
Masked gunmen shot and wounded German expat Flederer Ralf this week, as the KohPhanGanNews.org editor slept in his home on the notorious party island.
The long-term island resident was hit by three bullets in his hip before escaping and told reporters he’d been attacked after he complained about corrupt party promoters to federal authorities in Bangkok.
"Two masked men, about 20 years of age, entered my house at around 2am on Sunday night," he told the Nation newspaper, "They woke me up and charged at me. I grabbed a baseball bat to defend myself. Then all of a sudden, one of them pulled out a gun and opened fire."
His prescience in keeping a baseball bat close at hand followed a series of threats he detailed on his site after he began campaigning against unscrupulous party promoters staging more and more all disruptive parties across the island.
Writing about ‘dark evil forces finally destroying this nice little paradise island’, Ralf (aka Beckmann aka Becki) also vilified corrupt local cops and politicians despite, receiving ‘strange anonymous phone calls’ he wrote about on his site.
“Hey Beckmann, you better shut the fuck up! You’re mafia and we think it is better for you to leave the island! If you don’t stop now you better watch your head as something might start happening to you and then you will know who we are!” the anonymous phone caller said,” he recounted (writing in the 3rd person).
“The next day Becki received some internal forwarded warnings from some party organizers via a good friend of mine and the message was one more time more than easy to understand. ‘Becki, there are only two options! You have to leave the island or take your website offline!” he added.
The Nation said Becki is being treated in the Bangkok Hospital on neighbouring island Koh Samui. Hs site remains online.
Skrufff man-on-Koh Phangan Graham Gold (a relative newcomer) said he doesn’t know Becki personally though speaking to islanders ‘learned that he has been very outspoken about certain issues here’.
“Thai law across the Kingdom states that clubs should close at 2am though here on the island various parties continue til 6am and some beyond that,” Graham noted.
“In the last two months we have seen some of these parties terminated between 2.00 and 2.30am by the Bangkok/Suratthani police who override the local law enforcement officers on the island, but the closures have been sporadic, so it's still all a mystery to understand what is actually happening. Especially when at a recent meeting of party promoters, the chief of police and residents in the vicinity, it was agreed amongst them that they could each hold just ONE party a month and could close at 6am. So it’s all very contradictory,” said Graham.
http://tinyurl.com/c6uwsl (Becki, writing on the Koh Phangan News: ‘Never give up! Never surrender ;-) There is always hope around the next corner. And if you think there isn’t then please look again. Change your perspective! Change your way of thinking and you will realize that there is always hope somewhere out there – trust me! And again … this time in big capital and bold letters -> NEVER GIVE UP! NEVER SURRENDER! . . .’)
Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
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