Backpackers’ killers lose appeal

BANGKOK Two Myanmar men convicted of killing two British backpackers on a Thai holiday island have lost their appeal against the death sentence, a prosecutor said Wednesday, a ruling made without their defence lawyers present.

Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun were found guilty of killing David Miller, 24, and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, whose battered bodies were found on a beach on the southern diving resort of Koh Tao in September 2014.

Prosecutors insisted the evidence against the migrant workers was rock solid.

But during the trial and in their appeal, the defence claimed police bungled their investigation from the outset after local detectives came under huge pressure to solve a crime that risked damaging the country’s vital tourism sector.

Investigators were accused of failing to properly collect and preserve DNA samples and declining to test key pieces of evidence, or allow independent examination of the samples.

Their appeal failed 23 February, but was only made public on Wednesday, even catching the defendants’ lawyers flat-footed.

“The Appeals Court upheld the Criminal Court’s ruling against the two Myanmar suspects,” Theerawut Phamhun, deputy provincial prosecutor of Surat Thani province, told AFP.

He said the appeal judges ruled the evidence investigation “was up to standard” and that DNA found at the scene matched the suspects.

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