BANGKOK — A Thai court sentenced two men from Myanmar on Thursday to death for the murder of two British tourists last year, ending a high-profile trial shadowed by allegations that the police had mishandled the investigation.
The men, U Zaw Lin and U Win Zaw Htun, both workers on the popular resort island of Koh Tao, were convicted of murder, rape, and unlawful entry into Thailand. Their lawyers said they would appeal.
The bodies of the two Britons, David Miller, 24, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, were found on a Koh Tao beach in September 2014. The police said Witheridge had been raped, and that DNA evidence from semen retrieved from her body was at the heart of the prosecution’s case. There were no witnesses to the crime.
Legal experts criticized the Thai police for many missteps and said that lingering questions hung over the conviction. Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun were arrested two weeks after the murder, when the police were under heavy pressure to solve the crime.
In a statement outlining the reasons for its verdict, the court said that “physical evidence at the crime scene as well as circumstantial evidence before and after the incident” established the defendants’ guilt. One of the men was also convicted of theft; the court said he had taken a phone and sunglasses from Miller’s body.
The prosecution said the defendants had used a garden hoe to beat Miller and Witheridge. A bloodstained hoe was found near the crime scene, but a government expert testified that DNA retrieved from it did not match that of the suspects, one of several contradictions in the state’s case.
A request by defense lawyers to retest the DNA samples retrieved from Witheridge’s body was turned down. The government expert said the police had “used up all the samples.”
In addition, the defendants testified that the police had tortured them during interrogation. The court, in its statement on Thursday, called that allegation “groundless,” saying the defendants had provided no evidence of abuse.
After the hearing on Thursday, Michael Miller, the victim’s brother, read a statement outside the court on the island of Koh Samui, saying that while the Thai police had had a “difficult start” in their investigation, the family believed the evidence against the defendants was “absolutely overwhelming.”