PHUKET: Five boys accused of attacks on tourists were remanded in custody yesterday on Phuket by a judge who criticised their parents for not controlling their children.
The boys are to remain in Phuket Detention Centre pending a hearing of the charges against them.
An investigating police officer today took a statement from Austrian Rupert Wilhelmstatter at the intensive care unit of Bangkok Hospital Phuket in Phuket City.
Mr Wilhelmstatter, 52, is recovering from knife wounds inflicted when he was attacked while returning to accommodation in Patong from a morning's outing to the relatively remote Paradise beach at the southern edge of Patong Bay.
His son Mario told today what happened to his father. The two men and four friends had been on a month-long holiday to Phuket, but the four friends catch a flight home later today without the Wilhelmstatters, who hail from Salzburg.
Mario said today that his father is likely to be transferred out of ICU tomorrow but that he is likely to need more hospital treatment for at least a couple of weeks.
The boys, Mario said, were on foot when they attacked his father as he rode a motorcycle up the steep slope from Paradise beach on Tuesday.
''They used a long club to knock him off his motorcycle,'' said Mario. ''Then they attacked him. He fought back, and he was knifed in his arm, in his side, and his right hand was badly cut when he grabbed the blade.''
Complications of lung congestion caused by smoking and poor blood supply led to Mr Wilhelmstatter needing care for more than the knife wounds.
Mario said that his father, who helps to run a pub, had been coming to Phuket each year for about 12 years, while he had been accompanying his father on the past three visits.
''I doubt that we will come back next year,'' said Mario, who works as a chef. ''Phuket is a wonderful place that my father loved to visit but this kind of experience changes everything.''
Contrary to earlier reports, Mario said he believed the boys had made off with just a few hundred baht from the attack.
Other tourists from Europe are believed to have been attacked and robbed in similar fashion in the past two weeks.
Phuket police admit there's a social problem with teenagers who drop out of school and are allowed to run free on Phuket without parental supervision.
The boys are to remain in Phuket Detention Centre pending a hearing of the charges against them.
An investigating police officer today took a statement from Austrian Rupert Wilhelmstatter at the intensive care unit of Bangkok Hospital Phuket in Phuket City.
Mr Wilhelmstatter, 52, is recovering from knife wounds inflicted when he was attacked while returning to accommodation in Patong from a morning's outing to the relatively remote Paradise beach at the southern edge of Patong Bay.
His son Mario told today what happened to his father. The two men and four friends had been on a month-long holiday to Phuket, but the four friends catch a flight home later today without the Wilhelmstatters, who hail from Salzburg.
Mario said today that his father is likely to be transferred out of ICU tomorrow but that he is likely to need more hospital treatment for at least a couple of weeks.
The boys, Mario said, were on foot when they attacked his father as he rode a motorcycle up the steep slope from Paradise beach on Tuesday.
''They used a long club to knock him off his motorcycle,'' said Mario. ''Then they attacked him. He fought back, and he was knifed in his arm, in his side, and his right hand was badly cut when he grabbed the blade.''
Complications of lung congestion caused by smoking and poor blood supply led to Mr Wilhelmstatter needing care for more than the knife wounds.
Mario said that his father, who helps to run a pub, had been coming to Phuket each year for about 12 years, while he had been accompanying his father on the past three visits.
''I doubt that we will come back next year,'' said Mario, who works as a chef. ''Phuket is a wonderful place that my father loved to visit but this kind of experience changes everything.''
Contrary to earlier reports, Mario said he believed the boys had made off with just a few hundred baht from the attack.
Other tourists from Europe are believed to have been attacked and robbed in similar fashion in the past two weeks.
Phuket police admit there's a social problem with teenagers who drop out of school and are allowed to run free on Phuket without parental supervision.
