Thailand backpacker murder suspects retract confessions
Doubts emerge as migrant workers say they were beaten and threatened with electrocution
Two migrant workers from Myanmar arrested for the murder of two British backpackers in Thailand have retracted their confessions which they now claim were beaten out of them.
Myanmese embassy official Aung Myo Thant said suspects Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun, both 21, claimed they were beaten and threatened with electrocution. This came as fresh doubts emerged about the police investigation and forensic evidence supporting the case.
Aung Myo Thant said: "They told me that they were on the beach that night drinking and singing songs. They said they didn't do it, that the Thai police beat them until they confessed to something they didn't do. They're pleading with the [Myanmar] government to look into the case and find out the truth. They were a really pitiful sight. Their bodies had all sorts of bruises."
Thailand's most prominent forensic investigator, Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, has questioned why an expert in the field was not called in to collect samples following the discovery on September 15 of murdered British tourists Hannah Witheridge and David Miller, on Koh Tao island.
Police failing to call a forensic pathologist to oversee officers collecting evidence was a "weak point" in the investigation, she said.
Khunying added: "A case of two murdered people certainly needs a forensic physician."