Thai man broadcasts daughter’s murder

Videos visible online for 24 hours before they were taken down

AThai man filmed himself killing his 11-month-old daughter in two video clips posted on Facebook before committing suicide, police said yesterday.

People could access the videos of the child’s murder on her father’s Facebook page for roughly 24 hours, until they were taken down around 5pm in Bangkok (1000 GMT) yesterday, or about a day after being uploaded.

“This is an appalling incident and our hearts go out to the family of the victim,” a Singapore-based Facebook spokesman said in an email. “There is absolutely no place for content of this kind on Facebook and it has now been removed.”

Last week, Facebook said it was reviewing how it monitored violent footage and other objectionable material after a posting of the fatal shooting of a man in Cleveland, Ohio was visible for two hours before being taken down.

Paranoia

The harrowing footage from Thailand showed Wuttisan Wongtalay tying a rope to his daughter’s neck before dropping her from the rooftop of a deserted building in the Thai seaside town of Phuket.

Wuttisan’s suicide was not broadcast but his lifeless body was found beside his daughter, A Swedish court jailed three men yesterday for up to two and a half years for the rape of a woman that was broadcast live on Facebook.

The rape, which shocked Sweden, took place earlier this year in the city of Uppsala, about 80km north of Stockholm. Viewers of the live broadcast alerted police who swooped on an apartment in the city and detained the men.

Two of the men were convicted of rape and the third, who received a sixmonth sentence, of failing to report the crime and defamation for broadcasting it. The court did not give their ages but said they were born between 1992 and 1998. said Jullaus Suvannin, the officer in charge of the case.

“He was having paranoia about his wife leaving him and not loving him,” he said.

Television images showed the mother weeping and holding the dead baby.

Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy said it contacted Facebook yesterday afternoon about removing the videos, after receiving a police request.

“We contacted Facebook today and Facebook removed the videos,” ministry spokesman Somsak Khaosuwan said, adding that the government would take no action against the company.