Two sentenced to death for British backpacker murders

But eventually they arrested and charged Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun, also known as Wai Phyo.

Both men are expected to appeal within the next month.

“Justice is what has been delivered today”.

Human rights groups have noted that migrant workers from Myanmar, of whom there are about 2.5 million in Thailand, have previously been wrongly accused of crimes by Thai police.

Nakorn said an appeal must be lodged within 30 days.

“They are sure that on appeal, they will be freed and truth will be revealed”, he tweeted shortly after the verdict. “That is very much what happens in cases like this, they just go on for years”. The second and final stage is The Supreme Court, where cases can sometimes take years to be completed. Later it was also said the two, both 22-year-old, confessed the crime. A Thai court was to deliver its verdict Thursday in the murder case of two British backpackers, D…

Mr Miller’s family flew to Thailand for the verdict.

Two Myanmar migrant workers accused of murdering a pair of British backpackers on a Thai island face a verdict Thursday in a case that sullied the kingdom’s reputation as a tourist haven and raised questions over its justice system.

They could be sentenced to death if found guilty.

Miss Witheridge, from Hemsby, Norfolk, had earned a first class honours degree from the University of East Anglia and was working towards a masters in speech and language therapy at the University of Essex.

“She would have gone on to make a significant difference to the lives of many people”, they said.

It prompted Miss Witheridge’s family to issue a statement calling for the removal of the “pointless and insensitive reminders” of the murders. We have found the trial process extremely hard and our trips out to Thailand, to attend court, made for particularly distressing experiences.

“Words can not begin to explain the journey we have endured, a journey that has no end”. “We now need time, as a family, to digest the outcome of the trial and figure out the most appropriate way to tell our story”.

The dead bodies were recovered from Koh Tao on 15 September 2014.

Their lawyers pointed to the fact the DNA found on the hoe did not match either of the suspects and say forensic gathering techniques were riddled with errors.

The subsequent police investigation was labeled a farce amid intense pressure on authorities to solve the case which had tarnished Thailand’s image as relatively safe tourism destination.

As Miller spoke, the wails of the mothers of the two convicted men could be heard from inside the courthouse.

After recanting the confessions allegedly given after being tortured, the defendants pleaded innocent.

The judge said “DNA evidence from both suspects” guided the decision, citing forensic traces from the accused found on Witheridge’s body.

They also argued that evidence had been mishandled by police and their confessions were the result of “systematic abuse” of migrants in the area.

We believe that after a hard start the Royal Thai Police conducted a methodical and thorough investigation.

Post-mortem examinations showed that both had suffered severe head wounds.

Ms Witheridge had been savagely raped and beaten to death and Mr Miller had been beaten unconscious and left to drown in the incoming tide.

Thailand’s military ruler Prayuth Chan-ocha caused uproar when he commented on the killings, saying only ugly women were safe wearing bikinis in Thailand.

The mothers of the defendants, from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, sobbed as the verdicts were announced.

As police linked arms to keep onlookers away, the men wielded a dustbin to supposedly demonstrate how they killed the tourists.