Harris Binotti: Burmese police name British teacher wanted over murder of colleague
Police say Mr Binotti and his colleague Peter Gary Ferguson had been out drinking on Friday night
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An international manhunt is underway to find a British teacher who fled Burma after a colleague was found dead in his flat.
Burmese police said Interpol would take over the search for 25-year-old Harris Binotti, who worked at an international school in the country’s largest city Yangon.
Peter Gary Ferguson, a 47-year-old British teacher at the same school, was found dead on Sunday with wounds to his head and chest.
Mr Ferguson’s wife reportedly discovered the body inside an apartment belonging to Mr Binotti.
Police said the pair, who worked at Horizon International School, had been out drinking on Friday night. Burma's Ministry of Information said Mr Binotti had left the country but gave no further details on his whereabouts.
“The defendant of the case left from Yangon International Airport by Thai Airways on the evening on 5 November,” it said in a statement.
Police in Thailand were unwilling to comment on the possibility that he may have entered the kingdom or used it as a transit point, reported AFP.
“Now it becomes a cross-border case and it is formally up to the Interpol to deal with the process,” said Captain Koe Myo, head of police in the area of Yangon where Mr Ferguson's body was found.
Police have taken statements from Mr Ferguson's wife, a Thai woman with whom he has a young child, and Mr Binotti's partner.
Mr Binotti is thought to be from Dumfries but also lived in Aberdeen.
His Facebook page suggests he worked as a ski holiday representative in France, for a travel company in Greece and as an assistant manager at a rural Scottish hotel before moving to south east Asia to teach.
The owner of the Balcary Bay Hotel in Dumfries and Galloway confirmed to The Independent that Mr Binotti had worked there for "a couple of weeks" in 2014, but "it hadn't worked out".
He did not go into details about why Mr Binotti's employment had not been continued, but said the young man "had a few problems".
At the weathered, three-block building in downtown Yangon where Mr Binotti lived, neighbours recalled hearing two men fighting early Saturday.
“I heard their cries, saying: 'Go, go,' but I can't understand the rest as it was in English,” Myint Myint, an elderly woman who lives on the ground floor, told AFP.
“I heard them throwing things. I think it happened around 4 am [on Saturday]. Then they became silent.”
The victim had worked at Horizon International for a year while the suspect had been there for around three months, a school spokesman said.
Shahriyor Turgunov, the school’s director of studies, said the news of Ferguson's death had caused him a “hard blow to his chest and his head”.
Mr Turgunov said he and his colleagues “have absolutely no idea why this happened“.
“They were together and they had been drinking and enjoying the night and after that he was found dead on Sunday morning.”
Violent crimes against foreigners are rare in former junta-run Burma, whose expatriate population remains small compared to other south east Asian countries but is growing fast.
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Yangon is offering “support to the family of a British national following a death”, a spokesman said, adding the embassy is “in touch with the local authorities”.