Posted on 08/19/2006 3:43:31 PM PDT by Shermy
The American suspected of killing a six-year-old beauty queen will be deported to the United States this evening.
Amid mounting doubts as to whether John Karr, now 41, really murdered JonBenet Ramsey a decade ago, Lt-General Suwat Thamrongsisakul, commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, said yesterday that an air ticket for Karr's departure was ready.
The suspect will be transferred from the detention centre at the bureau's head office to Bangkok International Airport at 3pm, he said.
Karr's Thai visa was reportedly cancelled.
Officials have said the schoolteacher would be flown to Boulder, Colorado, where he will face charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child sexual assault.
A Thai Airways official said Karr was booked on TG794 bound for Los Angeles and would be accompanied by US security officers.
Suwat said a special detail might be provided because Karr was involved in a high-profile criminal case and an army of reporters were likely to follow
his move from Suan Plu to the airport.
A US Embassy source could not confirm Karr's departure date and said authorities were working through legal paperwork to expedite his expulsion. After three days in custody, Karr's mental status was still good, Suwat said.
Two police had been assigned to guard him. Yesterday he was served food from KFC as he requested.
Karr earlier told reporters he was alone with JonBenet when she died in the basement of her Boulder, Colorado home on December 26, 1996, but that her death was an accident.
"I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet," Karr said on Thursday as police took him to his hotel to collect his belongings following his arrest.
"It's very important for me that everyone knows that I love her very much, that her death was unintentional, that it was an accident."
US officials, the only ones who have actually interrogated Karr, have been silent about what he told them, citing his right to privacy and legal procedures, while Thai officials have been characteristically casual about giving out information about the case, rarely qualifying its reliability.
But police statements have raised questions about whether Karr is the killer or merely someone obsessed with the murder, one of the most notorious unsolved killings of the past decade in the United States.
On Friday, Suwat backed off of certain details he had given of Karr's story - details that had cast suspicion on his confession.
Suwat had initially quoted Karr as saying he had sexually assaulted the girl and given
her drugs, even though the autopsy showed no drugs in the girl's body.
He also told reporters before a news conference that Karr had claimed to have picked up JonBenet at her school, though her death came during the holiday break.
On Friday, Suwat confirmed his account of the sexual assault but revised the parts about Karr giving the girl drugs and fetching her from school.
"It may have been drugs, or it may have been something else because [Karr said] it [the encounter] was a blur, blur," Suwat said.
Also the statement about the girl being picked up from school was based on a documentary he had seen and not the interrogation, he said. Questions have also arisen over whether Karr was in Colorado at the time of the murder.
But access to Karr has been barred.
A sign was posted on Friday at the gate of the immigration centre lockup where he is being held, saying Karr would not be allowed visitors.
The sign directed those seeking to interview him to contact the US Embassy directly.
Denver attorney Larry Pozner, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers, said there were "serious questions" about the case.
"I hope we have found the murderer of JonBenet, but I have not heard the evidence that compels that conclusion," he said.
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