GTA IV Pulled After Fatal Stabbing

Lindsay McIntosh - The Scotsman

Copies of Grand Theft Auto IV have been pulled from Thailand stores after a teenager addicted to the violent video game stabbed a taxi driver to death in a botched robbery.

Police said Polwat Chino had been acting out a scene from the game, created by Edinburgh-based Rockstar North, when he launched the attack.

They said the 18-year-old told officers that "killing seemed easy in the game" after they coaxed him from the cab.

The victim, Kuan Pohkang, from the poor northern province of Maha Sarakham, who was struggling to support his family and pay off bank loans, had been stabbed ten times.

Police said Chino had grown desperate for cash to feed the game machine in a Bangkok games store, telling them in a statement: "I needed money to play the game every day."

He claimed his parents did not provide him with enough cash for his habit so he used 500 baht, about GBP 8, from his mother to arm himself for the robbery with two knives from Tesco.

Following Saturday's attack, one of the largest video game distributors in Asia, New Era Interactive Media, has halted sales of the game in Thailand.

Chino, who was taken into custody and charged with robbery, causing death and possessing offensive weapons, faces death by lethal injection if found guilty.

Described by his parents as polite and diligent, he was caught on Saturday trying to steer the cab backwards out of a street in the Bang Phlad district in central Bangkok with the severely wounded driver in the back seat.

When police arrived he was locked in the car, which they said he thought he would be able to drive after using one in the video game. Officers claimed that he had imitated a scene in the game where a criminal fleeing police kills a driver in order to obtain his car.

There have been calls from children's charities for stricter controls on Grand Theft Auto and other violent games.

Keith Vaz, the Labour MP who has campaigned against violent games, said: "It is a terrible tragedy that this man has been killed for a small amount of money so that the murderer, a self-confessed Grand Theft Auto addict, could continue to play the computer game.

"Clearly these violent games can have a very serious and negative effect on the people that play them. As this man said, murder seemed so easy in the game.

"I am not an advocate of censorship, what we need is to ensure that those under 18 are not given access to violent games and violent films."

No-one from Rockstar North could be reached for comment yesterday.

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