Holland Village bank heist: Thailand rejects request to extradite suspect
The Standard Chartered bank branch in Holland Village that was involved in the bank robbery. (Photo: Reuters)
The Attorney-General’s Office (AGO) in Bangkok has rejected a request by Singapore to have a suspect in July’s Holland Village bank robbery extradited back to the Republic.
“We denied it because we are not in the position to consider it,” said Amnat Chotchai, director-general of the international affairs department at the Bangkok AGO, according to a Straits Times report. No further reasons were given.
The suspect, 27-year-old Canadian David James Roach, has been accused of robbing a Standard Chartered Bank branch in Holland Village on 7 July. He allegedly committed the crime by handing a bank teller a note saying that he had a weapon.
On the same day, Roach flew to Bangkok from Singapore but was detained by Thai authorities at a backpacker’s hostel three days later. His right to stay in the country was then revoked and he has been held in an immigration detention centre there since then.
Currently, Singapore has no extradition treaty with Thailand nor does it have one with Canada, to which Roach will be deported as an immigration offender if he cannot be extradited, the report said.
Thailand’s immigration police chief Nathathorn Prousoontorn said, “The Canadian government wants us to deport him back to Canada. Immigration (police) can’t detain him for a long time. It has been a month. We have to make a decision.”
The Bangkok AGO is now working on a request by Singapore police to examine the items found on Roach when he was detained in Thailand. Bangkok police said he was found with 700,000 baht (S$27,000) in cash along with a notebook containing detailed plans for his escape and the same message found on the note used in the robbery.
