Man to be executed in ‘rare’ death sentence after German real estate agent was found dismembered and layered in thick tape inside a freezer in Thailand

A Thai man has been sentenced to death after a German estate agent was killed and found dismembered in a freezer.

Peter Ralter Mack, 62, was murdered by Shakrukh Karim Uddin and two Germans nationals in south Thailand last year.

Piriya Boonmark – Mr Mack’s wife – first raised the alarm to his disappearance on July 4, 2023, after he had left their home to see a property broker but failed to return. 

It was only six days later that he was found butchered draped in a thick layer of tape inside a freezer in the province of Chonburi.   

Local police soon found the estate agent’s Mercedes-Benz E350 thoroughly cleaned with chemicals. Investigators stated this was a bid to get rid of any evidence. 

CCTV later emerged, showing the trio of suspects bringing a freezer into a property only 400metres away from where the vehicle had been discovered.

It was revealed during trial at the  Pattaya Provincial Court that Mr Mack had been kidnapped and had 3.35million baht (£78,000) drained from his bank account before being killed by the three. 

Peter Ralter Mack, 62,was murdered by Shakrukh Karim Uddin and two Germans nationals in southern Thailand last year

Shahrukh Karim Uddin was taken into custody on Wednesday after attempting to escape to Maynmar 

There were claims that alleged ringleader Olaf Thorsten Brinkmann, Petra Christl Grundgreif -and Oulaws Motorcycle club member Uddin, planned to discard the man’s body in the sea.

The Thai court found all three guilty of premeditated murder and concealing a body, however the two German citizen were handed a life-sentence instead of capital punishment due to their confessions. 

Shakrukh Karim Uddin has since been sentenced to death. 

Under Thailand’s strict legal system, capital punishment remains legal – despite repeal attempts. The death penalty can be imposed for a long list of crimes, including murder, treason, terrorism, extreme cases of rape and robbery, and drug trafficking.

Although the country has studied other methods of execution, such as the lethal injection, executions are today carried out by shootings using a handgun.

Condemned prisoners are sedated and put face down on a mattress and shot three times through the heart. If the prisoner has opted to donate their internal organs, then they are instead executed by a single bullet to the back of the head.

As of August, there were nearly 400 inmates on death row in the country, with the last execution being carried out in June 2018.  

The incident saw a 26-year-old man killed by lethal injection on charges of robbery and the murder of a boy aged 17.