Burmese 'fishermen' murder British sailor in Thailand

by BW Roundup on 25 Mar 2009 A British sailor who had been cruisng the world for nine years has been allegedly murdered by three Burmese migrant fishermen, dubbed 'pirates', aboard his yacht off southern Thailand. They locked his wife in a cabin. The area where he was killed is normally regarded as safe for leisure sailing, and is usually very busy with cruising yachts. There have been no attacks on yachts in the area for at least the last fourteen years.

The body of Malcolm Robertson, 64, was thrown overboard near Koh Dong, an island about 45 miles west of the Satun province near the border with Malaysia, on Monday evening.

Reports suggested Mr Robertson was beaten to death with a hammer or had his throat slit with a knife.

Three Burmese men have been arrested on suspicion of murder. Apparently, Mr Robertson had tried to stop them as they climbed on to his yacht, a 44ft Bruce Roberts design yacht named Mr Bean, to steal a dinghy.

After being tied up for eight to ten hours and locked in her cabin, Mrs Robertson finally escaped, finding blood on the deck but no sign of her husband. She then waved down a passing vessel and called police.

She is reported to have said: 'They wanted the dinghy and started hitting Malc about the head.'

Yesterday Mrs Robertson's brother, John Clee, said the robbers brought his sister up to the deck at times when they needed her help with sailing the yacht.

Police swiftly found the three men afloat in the southern Andaman Sea in a dinghy that had been attached to the Robertsons' yacht. A police spokesman said they had confessed to the murder and were migrant workers. It is possible they belong to the Rohingya people, an ethnic Muslim group persecuted by the Burmese junta.

Television cameras caught local people throwing punches at the suspects when they were brought on to land by police, who dragged them away before further trouble erupted.

Mr and Mrs Robertson, from St Leonards in East Sussex UK, are thought to have been sailing from Phuket in Thailand, where their yacht was berthed, to the Malaysian duty-free island of Langkawi.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said yesterday: 'We can confirm two British nationals were attacked off Satun. Our consular team in Bangkok is in touch with next of kin. One of the British nationals has been reported missing and the other is in hospital. We are urgently pursuing this case.'

The Royal Thai Navy and police are thought to have called off the search for Mr Robertson's body last night at 10pm local time. Police Colonel Virat Ohn-song said: 'We believe from our interview with his wife that Mr Robertson was dead before he was thrown into the water. This is bad. Very bad.'

Mr and Mrs Robertson set off on a round-the-world voyage from Eastbourne marina in June 1998. They had already sailed Mr Bean around the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic, through the Caribbean, then across the South Pacific to Australia and then up to Thailand. An additional tragic twist to the story is that they had put the boat up for sale at the end of 2007, but it hadn't sold.

Reports suggested that they were planning to head back to Eastbourne this year, and had advertised on a blog for fellow yachties to join them on a convoy to the Red Sea.

The last update is from September 2007. It is headed: 'Still the excitement is there after nine years.'

Family members are understood to be flying to Thailand.