THREE young men faced charges of attempted murder today after security cameras captured their entire mad rampage through an upscale Phuket City apartment block.

Enraged after a pre-dawn argument in the street with an expat, the men were seen in a lift putting a knife to the throats of a Western tourist couple.

The tourists were departing for an early-morning flight home from Phuket airport after a holiday.

The men then proceeded down a fourth-floor corridor in the apartment block, hammering and kicking on eight doors, with one man shouting: ''I am going to kill you!''

Cowering in their rooms, terrified, were the residents, including five expat women tourists, and at least one Thai family with two children.

Most unfortunately for the young men, one of the terrified residents happened to be a female justice of the Phuket Provincial Court.

As the men pleaded to be allowed to go free today, it also emerged that they were on the wrong floor.

The man they were seeking does have an apartment in the upscale Phuket Center Apartment, a colorful city landmark just off Rassada Road.

But he lives on the third floor, not the fourth.

Today an Englishman named John, whom the men mistook for the man they wanted, went to Phuket Police Headquarters to help lay formal charges of attempted murder against the three men.

The men, together with their families, pleaded for forgiveness for their early morning rampage of terror.

But police refused bail and the men are being held in custody, pending their trials.

Police named the men today as Monton Kailurk, 25, who was accused of wielding the knife, Jetsadaporn Kompanya, 22, and Pichet Kemtong, 22.

Khun Monton was a resident of the apartment block.

Police reports of the case say two of the young men argued in Rassada Road about 4am with an expat, who may have thrown a punch at one of them.

The expat then ran to his room in the Phuket Center Apartment.

The two men had been drinking at the apartment block with Khun Monton, who had an apartment there.

They called him and he went downstairs to give them access to the block. When he went downstairs, he was carrying a knife.

The confrontation with the departing tourists having a knife held to their throats followed, along with the rampage down the corridor.

Honorary British Consul Martin Carpenter accompanied John to Police Headquarters today.


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