The police have put out reward of 100,000 baht for information on the Asian man’s whereabouts, as now he is the No 1 suspect.
The new lead in the murder probe came as a team of investigators compared closed-circuit TV footage taken from the areas, and uncovered incriminating evidence on one particular individual.
Footage from the resort where Mr David Miller was staying showed him wearing cream colour boxer shorts as he was walking toward the beach.
Comparing that footage with another at a location nearby which captured the image of an Asian male shows the suspicious individual running past the CCTV camera (from the direction of the crime scene) wearing the exact same shorts. Blue-colour pants that were found by the body of Mr David are now believed to have belonged to the suspect.
This indicated that he mistakenly grabbed the pants of the victim to wear and left his own at the scene in a hurry as shown in the CCTV showing he ran past.
Police have yet to disclose the details of the case but have put up a B100,000 reward for any information on this suspect.
Meanwhile forensic police from Bangkok joined local forensic police in Surat Thani to collect DNA samples from more than 20 Myanmar workers both male and female, rounded up from the vicinity of the crime scene. Their finger prints were also taken.
The DNA samples will be compared with DNA samples found at the crime scene where David Miller and Hannah Witheridge were brutally murdered on September 15.
Acting Royal Thai Police Commissioner Pol Gen Somyos Phumphanmuang will be travelling to Koh Tao tomorrow to oversee the investigations.
He said an FBI forensic team, which specialises in DNA coding, has been asked to help in the case.
The head of the Royal Thai Police Office of the Forensic Science Pol Lt-Gen Kamrop Panyakaew said that the database and quipment currently available in Thailand cannot differentiate between different races or ethnicities and cannot identify skin complexion or the age of DNA samples taken from an individual.
The FBI investigators, however, do have the experience and technology, as well as an extensive database, that may allow them to use the the samples from the crime scene to make these deductions.