Yangon (AsiaNews) – Myanmar will formally appeal the verdict against two of its citizens sentenced to death in Thailand last week for the murder of a British couple at a Thai resort, citing conflicting evidence in a case that has sparked protests in Myanmar involving ordinary people, activists and Buddhist and Christian religious leaders (including Card Charles Bo).
On 24 December, a Thai court imposed the death on Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun, both aged 22, after finding them guilty of the murder of David Miller, 24, and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on the resort island of Koh Tao in September 2014.
Though the two men at first admitted to the crime, they later recanted, saying they had made their confession under duress, a claim rejected by Thai police.
Myanmar authorities said they plan to send a legal team to make a formal appeal against the sentence imposed on its two migrant workers. This follows a wave of protests at home calling for the release of the two young men, seen as scapegoats in a botched Thai police investigation.
“If we find these things, we will have the right to ask for a new trial to be carried out again from the beginning,” Aung Myo Thant told Radio Free Asia.
Under Thai law, appeals must be filed within 30 days, but Myanmar’s lawyers will request an extension of the deadline if necessary.
Back in Myanmar, protests continued in Mandalay and Myawaddy with calls for Thailand’s highly revered king to have the trial reopened.
The murders of two British backpackers, whose bodies were discovered on a beach in Koh Tao, has cast a shadow over Thailand’s tourist industry, one of the country’s main foreign exchange earners.
Following the incident, Thailand’s police and judiciary came under huge pressure to find a culprit to allay public fears and mollify foreign media.
Thailand is home to a large Myanmese community of migrant workers and mostly ethnic minority refugees who fled war and repression under the military regime that ruled the former Burma with an iron fist for decades.