Bangkok, Monday

A BUDDHIST monk who confessed to killing Jo Masheder for the contents of her wallet, has been charged with raping an Austrian backpacker just three days before.

Phra Yodchart Suaphoo, 21, nicknamed ``Tiger', who was defrocked as he left his temple under police escort on Sunday morning, was paraded before the world's press today and revealed as a most unholy man, a convicted robber and rapist, who only three days before murdering the young British law graduate Johanne, had raped an Austrian tourist in his temple grounds.

Police say Suaphoo faces the death penalty if convicted although if he pleads guilty, as expected, his sentence will be cut to life. In Thailand life means life although it may be reduced if the King announces an amnesty.

Early this morning, as Jo's grief stricken and disgusted parents returned by air to London, senior monks went down into the caves of the Tham Khaopoon temple and chanted all day for Jo to have happiness ``in her next life''.

Perhaps they chanted too for the reputation of the monkhood in Thailand. Across the front page of the Thai Rath newspaper in Bangkok today, under the story of Jo's murder and gruesome pictures of Jo's corpse, was another picture of two Thai monks lying side by side on a mortuary slab.

The monks, said the story, had killed each other with a gun and knife in a temple in Nakon Si Thammarat in Southern Thailand, in a feud over money.

Thais yesterday could surely to be said to be in a state of shock. The shame that the murder has brought to the country is real. From office workers in Bangkok, to hoteliers, and police, people are upset over the murder.

``If people are not safe in the grounds of a temple, from the monks who guide us, where are they safe?'' was a typical response. After dawn today, Suaphoo, now disrobed, was taken out of his cell at Kanchanaburi police station, handcuffed and placed into a minibus and taken in a convoy of eight police vehicles to the police headquarters in Rama 1 Road, Bangkok.

There on the 12th floor - while in the police hospital 200 yards away Jo's body was undergoing a post-mortem examination - Thai Police director general Pote Bunyachinda paraded him before the world's cameras. Reading from a prepared script, Bunyachinda told how Yodchart, an amphetamine addict, had offered to show Jo a secret cave not usually seen by tourists before attempting to rob her.

According to what Yodchart told police, Jo resisted, and he threw her into the cave, while holding on to her small pack and camera strap. He then climbed down by rope, made sure she was dead, and moved it to a position from which it could not be seen by people peering down.

Suaphoo, he said, had a previous conviction for rape, and had already served two and a half years in jail. He would also be charged with raping an Austrian tourist named Inge Holecek. He had other convictions for robbery dating back to his early teenage years.

On a table in front of Yodchart were the remains of Jo's charred belongings. A burnt credit card, a hotel key, a New Zealand telecom card and the book London Fields by Martin Amis.

Police pointed out scratches on Suaphoo's shoulder which he confessed were the marks of Jo's desperate last lunges before she fell to her death.

Police also revealed in her last diary entry on December 9, Jo said she was going to the wat Tham Khao Poon temple on the recomendation of her friend teacher Miss Naree. She wrote she would later check out of the hotel.

Standing behind General Bunyachinda was Police Colonel Varathep Mathawat, head of the investigation branch of Thailand's immigration police. His ``Team 1'' together with Mr Stuart Masheder had pursued the hunt for Jo Masheder, from Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, south to the island of Ko Samui and Ko Phangan, and east of Bangkok to the island of Ko Samui.

Where local police had failed to uncover the slightest clue his team closed the case in 12 hours after a young Thai women, an English teacher called Naree phoned in to say she recognised Jo from a photograph.

But the Colonel was not celebrating. ``After Jo's father identified the body yesterday we sat down at a table together for about an hour. We said nothing, he just wept without stopping. I feel so bad. He just sobbed and sobbed. We had built up a relationship over the two weeks we spent together.

``I cannot describe how painful it was for Mr Stuart, but I know how painful it was for myself. I feel ashamed this has happened. I wanted to find Jo alive. I am more ashamed that this had happened in the grounds of a temple.''