KOH SAMUI // The defence team for two Myanmar nationals accused of killing two British backpackers in Thailand last year were dealt a blow on Thursday as it emerged that some crucial DNA evidence would not be retested.
Migrant workers Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun are on trial for the murder of British tourists David Miller, 24, and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on Koh Tao island in September. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Thai police and prosecutors say DNA evidence points towards the two 22-year-old suspects, but the defence claims the men have been scapegoated by an under pressure police force who bungled their investigation and coerced confessions from them.
Much of the defence’s case revolves around a bid to retest key forensic evidence, including DNA on cigarettes and a condom found near the crime scene as well as DNA swabs taken from the victims’ bodies.
“The DNA on the cigarettes is all finished,” the head of police on the nearby island of Koh Pha Ngan told the defence team outside the courtroom on Koh Samui on Thursday.
The court is due to rule on Friday on whether the swabs held at Thailand’s Central Institute of Forensic Science in Bangkok may be retested, the defence team said.
“If they say [the DNA] is finished, it’s finished. Maybe our [forensic] expert will discuss on the stand whether it can be used or not. I don’t know,” lead defence lawyer Nakhon Chomphuchart said.
The bludgeoned bodies of the two British holidaymakers were found on Koh Tao’s main beach just as Thailand’s vital tourism industry was beginning to recover from months of violent street protests that culminated in a May 2014 military coup.
The case shone a light on Thailand’s many underpaid and often exploited Myanmar migrants who work in the lucrative tourist sector as well as the country’s judicial system, which many Thais complain is weighted in favour of the wealthy or influential.
* Agence France-Presse