A Buddhist monk wanted on a decade-old murder charge jumped off a cliff to try and escape arrest in Thailand.

Santi, 47, plunged down a 15ft rock face while police were detaining him at a mountain shrine in Nakhon Phanom province.

The suspect allegedly battered his girlfriend to death in 2014 before entering monkhood in the northeastern province. He had spent 11 years cloaked in Buddhist robes while wanted for alleged murder.

But the Central Investigation Bureau managed to track him down to a remote monastery on January 17, where they found him living peacefully as an ascetic.

Officers served his arrest warrant, but bizarrely declined to cuff him 'out of respect for his religious status'.

Police said Santi then asked to be taken to the Buddhist mountain shrine to pay his respects before being jailed. But once there, he reportedly leapt into the valley below before bolting across the rugged mountain ridge.

Cops gave chase through the treacherous terrain, with some of them injured in the pursuit. The half-a-mile chase ended as Santi was finally captured.

Following his arrest, the suspect was formally defrocked and handed over to police in Phuket, where he allegedly committed the murder.

Authorities said Santi had battered his girlfriend Nongyao in August 2014 over a lovers' quarrel. He had left her corpse in their rented room where she was discovered dead a week later.

Santi claimed he was drunk when he carried out the lethal violence.

He said: 'I argued with my girlfriend regularly because of jealousy. On the day of the incident, I was so drunk that I lost control. Before I knew it, I was beating her until she wasn't moving anymore. I then locked the room behind me and fled the area to become a monk at the temple.'

Officials last year arrested hundreds of fugitives living as Buddhist monks across temples in Thailand.

The suspects allegedly sought safe haven in temples - where head-shaving and a Hermit-like life are mandatory - across the country to avoid detection by the police.

An estimated 93.4 per cent of the Thai population is Buddhist, with some 45,000 temples across Thailand, according to the National Office of Buddhism.

But public trust in the country's Buddhist order has been eroded by crimes and scandals, including a femme fatale seduction scandal in July where a string of high-ranking monks were caught funneling temple funds to a woman named Sika Golf in July.

The temptress was later arrested and admitted she had seduced the religious leaders to access temple money which she used for gambling.