‘WE BEAT THEM WITH BLUNT END OF HOE – WE WERE DRUNK. WE DID NOT MEAN TO KILL THEM’





BUT THEY WERE ‘BEATEN AND THREATENED WITH TORTURE’











Two Burmese men accused of the barbaric killings of David Hannah and Hannah Witheridge on the Thai island of Koh Tao – have admitted to lawyers they did commit the crimes.





In interviews yeterday and today in Koh Samui prison the men ow identified as Win Zaw Htun and Zaw Lin confessed to lawyer working for the Burmese Embassy and also an ngo.



Embassy retained lawyer Aung Myo said that the men from Kyaukphyu in Arakan State confessed to the crimes but told the legal team they had been tortured.

“Lawyer Aung Myo Thant said the pair, Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun, both 21, from the Arakanese town of Kyaukphyu, told a Burmese embassy legal team they had murdered English tourists Hannah Witheridge and David Miller by bludgeoning them to death with a hoe on 15 September. However, he said, their stories were ‘somewhat inconsistent’ and ‘their faces portrayed fear’.(DVB)

“From what we have learned, there are inconsistencies with both the forensic report and evidence provided in the case,” Aung Myo Thant DVB is reporting.

“The defendants kept repeating that they were very drunk that night. Based on what we have been told, it seems to us like this case is a set-up and not based on hard facts.”

Irrawadday online further quoted Aung Myo Thant as saying:

” Win Zaw Htun was assaulted and threatened after refusing to confess to the murders during a police interrogation.

“He didn’t confess when he was in the investigation center. A police officer hit the side of his face and the interpreter also hit him four times. Then police threatened to electrocute them [the suspects] and said that no worse thing would happen to them if they confessed. So, they finally confessed as they saw no hope.”

Nut Kyaw Thaung, a representative of the Myanmar Association in Thailand, who attended the interview with the defendants, said:

“They said they bashed the victims two or three times each with the blunt end of a hoe, but not with the sharp end. They said they did it because they were drunk but did not intend to murder the couple.”

Burmese Embassy officials were declined access to a third Burmese Maung Maung, who was being detained by police as a witness. Maung Maung was being kept in a hotel, said Thai police.

Irrawaddy further reported: “The mother of three Burmese migrant workers who alleged that Thai police poured hot water over them during questioning said she would not let her children speak to the media out of fear for their safety. She said that after the allegation surfaced in the media, Thai police came to warn her children that they would be in trouble if they spoke to the media again”.

But Irrawaddy does not report that the two Burmese confessed on the contrary Zaw Lin did not wish to talk at all and Win Zaw Htun appeared very guarded. Both looked very worried.

The Thai National Human Rights Commission has reported on PBS that the two Burmese said they were ‘tortuted’ and lawyers for Myanmar Migrant Workers/ Cross Cultural Federation are reporting similar claims.