German found dead in Udon Thani lock-up
A German man charged with raping a minor was found dead in his prison cell in what was believed to be a suicide, police said yesterday.
The body of Helmut Nehls, 64, was found on Wednesday at a prison in Udon Thani with his wrists slashed and a sock stuffed down his throat, Captain Jirapong Singhasuriya said. He was believed to have died from suffocation, rather than loss of blood, because the slashes to his wrists, inflicted with the jagged edge of a toilet bowl, were not deep. "We are sure this was a suicide because no one could get into his cell, and the key to his cell was with the supervisor, not the lower officers," Jirapong said. Thai police arrested Nehls, who is from Zeppernick in the eastern German state of Sachsen-Anhalt, on February 10 on charges of raping and abducting a minor. He was arrested in a rented house in Udon Thani with a 12-year-old girl. Corrections Department chief Nathee Chitsawang ordered officers to question 30 inmates in the prison and to check the closed-circuit TV near Nehls' cell. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, The Nation
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