Belarusian ‘possessed by evil spirits’ after trip to Samui
PHUKET: A hallucinating Belorussian man ran amok in Thalang on Tuesday night, shouting that he could see dead people as he stripped himself naked and ran into a rubber plantation near the Shell gas station on Thepkrasattri Road, where he and a friend had pulled up on a motorcycle.
He was later found and subdued by locals, who, believing the man had been possessed by evil spirits, performed impromptu rituals with Buddha image amulets.
Police arrived at the gas station at 7pm and questioned Starheyeu Aliaksandr, 34, who said his friend, Kirill Belov, 34, had been acting strangely and was confused about his own state of mind since a recent trip to Koh Samui.
Police and volunteers spent about half an hour looking for Mr Belov before finding him about 500 meters from the gas station in the company of local villagers, who had performed exorcism rituals on the naked man.
“The exorcism spells seemed to have worked – Mr Belov appeared to have calmed down. We tested him for drug use, but the results were negative,” said Thalang Police Lt Nirot Boonsiri.
“The friends plan to go to Malaysia on a visa run but we’d still like to have Mr Belov looked at by a psychologist,” he added.
— Winai Sarot
