DEATH SENTENCE
Murderers of Brit backpackers Hannah Witheridge and David Miller to be EXECUTED after losing last-ditch appeal in Thai court
TWO men found guilty of murdering a pair of British backpackers in Thailand will be executed after their appeals were thrown out by the courts today.
The battered bodies of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were found on a beach on the popular tourist island of Koh Tao in September 2014.
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The popular holiday spot has been dubbed 'death island' after a string of tourists died in shocking circumstances while holidaying there.
Ms Witheridge, 23, from Norfolk, had been raped and bludgeoned to death while Mr Miller, 24, from Jersey, suffered shocking head injuries, according to police.
Burmese migrant workers Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo, also known as Win Zaw Htun, were found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death in December 2015.
However, their supporters had claimed the pair had been framed and the evidence mishandled.
Miss Witheridge and Mr Miller met on Koh Tao while staying at the same hotel in Thailand.
The pair were killed with a wooden hoe as they walked back to their hotel rooms late at night on a beach.
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Lin and Phyo initially confessed to the killings but then retracted their statements saying they were tortured.
However, the three judges who handed down the original guilty verdicts and death penalties concluded the prosecution proved its case with forensic evidence that met “international standards” linking the men to the murders.
The trial came following accusations Lin and Phyo, who were migrant workers on the island, were being used as scapegoats by desperate investigators.
The pair - who now face death by lethal injection - were even forced to re-enact the murders after their apparent confessions.
Thai 'death island's' bloody role call of victims
Thai authorities say IT manager Ben Harrington, 32, broke his neck when he crashed into an electricity pylon on a night-time moped ride on the island in August 2012.
But his mum believes he was mugged as wallet and watch were missing.
A UK autopsy later discovered Ben died of a transected aorta — a rupture of the body’s largest artery — rather than a broken neck.
Nick Pearson, 25, was found floating in an island bay, at the foot of a 50ft drop on New Year’s Day 2014.
Despite claims of a fall, he had no broken bones. While police ruled out foul play, Nick's family, who say officers did not investigate a single witness, believe he was murdered.
Hannah Witheridge, 23, from Norfolk and David Miller, 24, of Jersey were bludgeoned to death with a wooden hoe as they walked back to their hotel room late at night.
Hannah was also raped in the attack in September 2014.
Frenchman Dimitri Povse, 29, was found hanged in a bungalow on the island on New Year's Day 2015.
His death was ruled as suicide but police could not explain why his hands were tied behind his back.
Later that month, graduate Christina Annesley, 23, was said to have died of natural causes after mixing antibiotics she was taking for a chest infection with alcohol. However, no toxicology report was conducted.
In March 2015 Russian tourist Valentina Novozhyonova, 23, vanished from her hostel on Koh Tao in mid-February - sparking a police search.
She had checked into the hostel on February 11 and was due to check out on February 16 – but failed to do so.
A few days later, staff checked her room to discover her mobile phone, passport and camera had all been left behind.
Bricklayer Luke Miller was found at the bottom of a swimming pool at the Sunset Bar at Sairee Beach in January 2016.
His family accused the Thai police of a cover-up.
Belgian backpacker Elise Dallemagne, 30, was found hanged in the hills on the island on April 28, 2017.
German Bernd Grotsch, 47, was found dead at his home deep in the jungle in the Mae Haad part of Koh Tao.
Bizarre pictures showed them handcuffed wearing bicycle helmets surrounded by cops as they reconstructed the attack on Sairee beach.
The trial of the two Burmese migrant workers was also plagued by accusations of human rights abuses.
International legal and forensic scientists said in 2016 that the DNA investigation by the Thai Police Forensics Laboratory was incompetent with no chain of evidence.
The legal team defending the two men also said the evidence collected by police was unreliable and not in accordance with internationally accepted standards.
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"The death penalty sentence against the two accused and their conviction should be reversed and quashed," Andy Hall, an adviser to the two men's legal team, said ahead of their appeal.
"DNA and forensics evidence relied on to convict Zaw Law and Wai Phyo, and sentence them to death in the Koh Tao murder case was fundamentally flawed and unreliable in terms of international standards."
The murders on Koh Tao, a laid-back haven for divers, sullied Thailand's image in the tourism industry, which accounts for about 10 per cent of the country's economy.
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