Evidence from UK's National Crime Agency 'critical' in sentencing Koh Tao killers to death

[saminoz]

British intelligence used to put two migrant workers on Thailand’s death row

National Crime Agency criticised for involvement in case of murdered backpackers

Paul Peachey

LONDON: -- Thailand used evidence supplied by the National Crime Agency (NCA) to put two migrant workers on death row despite senior British officials warning that such a move could damage the reputation of UK policing, it has been revealed.

In December, two Burmese labourers were convicted of the 2014 murder of backpackers David Miller and Hannah Witheridge despite the concerns of human rights groups. During their trial, the defendants claimed that they had been tortured into confessing their role in the killing.

On 15 February, an investigation by BuzzFeed News disclosed that the NCA handed over details about Mr Miller’s iPhone to Thai police. The information – the phone’s serial number – was used in the criminal trial to link Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo to the killing, as it proved that a smashed iPhone found on a property linked to the two Burmese migrants had belonged to the victim.

Full story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/british-intelligence-used-to-put-two-migrant-workers-on-thailand-s-death-row-a6875841.html

-- THE INDEPENDENT 2016-02-16

If this is so, and that's up for debate, then at best (worst?) it would still only go a small part of the way to proving that they had some peripheral association or (close?) contact with a phone that may or may not, have been Millers.

Since when would such a flimsy piece of evidence be sufficient to condemn two men to death?

It in no way goes anywhere near helping to prove their guilt of the murders or rape.

Instead of wasting column inches on this tripe, what about having a serious investigation into the preponderance of missing evidence: Hannah's clothing, CCTV footage, missing/used/ignored DNA etc.etc.etc.etc.?

[stephenterry]

It is all a moot point. The police failed to link possession of the phone to the accused, yet the court went with it. Just as the court accepted the confessions which were the result of torture and written by a man who could not speak the language of the accused or Thai with any degree of competency. They also accepted DNA evidence which appears to have been done by a 5 year old in the kitchen and recorded in crayon.

If the court didn't care about any of that then...

The defendants admitted to finding the phone. That's when their story changed to returning back to the beach at 5am to collect their clothes.

Actually, you're wrong. Only one defendant said he'd found a phone, and that same defendant returned to the beach to collect his clothes. The other defendant wasn't involved.

[saminoz]

What are actually the names of the B2?

I have seen:-

Win Zaw Tun

Win Zaw Htun (presume the same as above)

Zaw Lin

Wai Phyo

Do you think it really matters?

As far as the RTP are concerned, simply insert any two Burmese names and that'll do nicely!

[Briggsy]

It is all a moot point. The police failed to link possession of the phone to the accused, yet the court went with it. Just as the court accepted the confessions which were the result of torture and written by a man who could not speak the language of the accused or Thai with any degree of competency. They also accepted DNA evidence which appears to have been done by a 5 year old in the kitchen and recorded in crayon.

If the court didn't care about any of that then...

Everything you say is correct.

But the Court makes the rules and everyone else has to play by them.

Exactly what the hell is your point here? That everyone should shrug their shoulders at this travesty, and go back to their Guinness?

People need to make noise, and plenty of it, until this is reversed.

Really, I can't fathom your comment...

My comment followed on from my earlier comment. Canuckamuck was replying to me.

That is the defence needs to unpick the original guilty verdict in order to win the appeal.

You seem to have completely misunderstood my point.

[lucky11]

What's Buzzfeed's source?

During the trial it was reported that the UK police wouldn't hand over IMEI information so Miller's father had to get it from the mobile company himself.

Edit- For example, "Smashed phone found at second defendants home was proven to belong to Miller, with help from Millers father to identify the IMEI serial number."

Evidence is evidence, no matter the source.

I seem to remember Andy Hall revealing that one of the B2 confessed to him that he was in possession of David's phone and sunglasses with both the sunglasses and phone broken and thrown away afterwards (presumably to rid themselves of the implicating evidence).

If someone burgled a house, would they smash their booty the next day? This behaviour just doesn't make sense to me and the forthcoming explanation as to how they became in possession of these two items is just too ridiculous to conceive!! The court is right to use this as genuine evidence, resulting in the guilty verdict.

[taony]

Thai "police": What is the number of David's phone?

British police: ******

Thai "police": Yes! yes! that's the one we found!

[KunMatt]

What's Buzzfeed's source?

During the trial it was reported that the UK police wouldn't hand over IMEI information so Miller's father had to get it from the mobile company himself.

Edit- For example, "Smashed phone found at second defendants home was proven to belong to Miller, with help from Millers father to identify the IMEI serial number."

Evidence is evidence, no matter the source.

I seem to remember Andy Hall revealing that one of the B2 confessed to him that he was in possession of David's phone and sunglasses with both the sunglasses and phone broken and thrown away afterwards (presumably to rid themselves of the implicating evidence).

If someone burgled a house, would they smash their booty the next day? This behaviour just doesn't make sense to me and the forthcoming explanation as to how they became in possession of these two items is just too ridiculous to conceive!! The court is right to use this as genuine evidence, resulting in the guilty verdict.

I seem to remember you spending an entire week on here deliberately misquoting Andy Hall over half of a Tweet just to purposely derail a KT thread and troll this board, so your agenda is very clear and you have zero credibility about this case after that.

[cumgranosalum]

Someone overstepped the line - the UK cannot assist is supplying eidence that may lead to the death penalty........unless of course it suggested the opposite?

[lucky11]

What's Buzzfeed's source?

During the trial it was reported that the UK police wouldn't hand over IMEI information so Miller's father had to get it from the mobile company himself.

Edit- For example, "Smashed phone found at second defendants home was proven to belong to Miller, with help from Millers father to identify the IMEI serial number."

Evidence is evidence, no matter the source.

I seem to remember Andy Hall revealing that one of the B2 confessed to him that he was in possession of David's phone and sunglasses with both the sunglasses and phone broken and thrown away afterwards (presumably to rid themselves of the implicating evidence).

If someone burgled a house, would they smash their booty the next day? This behaviour just doesn't make sense to me and the forthcoming explanation as to how they became in possession of these two items is just too ridiculous to conceive!! The court is right to use this as genuine evidence, resulting in the guilty verdict.

I seem to remember you spending an entire week on here deliberately misquoting Andy Hall over half of a Tweet just to purposely derail a KT thread and troll this board, so your agenda is very clear and you have zero credibility about this case after that.

Look, I don't use Twitter, don't understand what it is all about and seemingly made a mistake with my posts (still don't know what or why).

I didn't misquote one aspect of Andy Hall's take on JH's (Facebook page?) though and that was that he appeared to have misunderstood the situation (as much as I did) because he was pleading with him to 'stay with it' and not change his opinion regards their guilt. He clearly had the notion that Jonathon Head was wavering, so this wanna be lawyer thought the same as I did about the Tweet, half Tweet, part of a Tweet, whatever it was.My mistake seemed to revolve around the single 'if'. Why was this inserted at the wrong end of the sentence?

It appeared to me as something akin to "dog was black, the.

I'll ignore anything to do with Twitter/Facebook in the future as it is all mumbo jumbo to me and I deem it to be a tool of children or adults wanting to revert back to being children!!

[Crash999]

What's Buzzfeed's source?

During the trial it was reported that the UK police wouldn't hand over IMEI information so Miller's father had to get it from the mobile company himself.

Edit- For example, "Smashed phone found at second defendants home was proven to belong to Miller, with help from Millers father to identify the IMEI serial number."

Evidence is evidence, no matter the source.

I seem to remember Andy Hall revealing that one of the B2 confessed to him that he was in possession of David's phone and sunglasses with both the sunglasses and phone broken and thrown away afterwards (presumably to rid themselves of the implicating evidence).

If someone burgled a house, would they smash their booty the next day? This behaviour just doesn't make sense to me and the forthcoming explanation as to how they became in possession of these two items is just too ridiculous to conceive!! The court is right to use this as genuine evidence, resulting in the guilty verdict.

The original article is suggesting the UK government helped the case which ended in B2 being on death row. Even if they are guilty beyond any doubt the UK can't do that.

Info beforehand said that the UK government didn't hand over info. And in fact in the "anonymous" video there is a brief flash of a letter from the UK government confirming that they can't hand over information.

Yet Buzzfeed sources are now saying that the UK government did in fact participate in the case. It doesn't change the outcome of the case but means laws were broken in the UK.

I think this is more journalistic mudding of the waters. Wouldn't surprise me if those so called inside informers didn't actually exist.

[crazykopite]

As far as I am concerned the murder/murderers are still at large !

[AGLV0121]

The defence is at the mercy of the Thai court.

The Thai court found the defendants guilty chiefly on the strength of two points, the DNA evidence presented by the police and the phone.

Whatever you may think of that, that is what the Court of First Instance came to in their judgement.

The defence, therefore, must seek to undermine and dispute these findings.

One way to do this would be to belie the Thai police claim that the phone info came from the British authorities. This would undermine the police evidence with regards to the phone.

Do you really think one can belie the Police in Thailand? Even if possible, I doubt so. DNA evidence is already denied, one can taint material due to be analyzed, there are just too many ways. I doubt there will be a - if not entirely fair - at least open trial.

[phuketandsee]

To me this case was bungled, rushed and concluded quickly and for me that's a signal 'someone in the know' wanted it out of the way. Does anyone know of any appeal progress?

I believe the appeal is due to be submitted on February 24th

[Scouse Twoccer]

Great. At long last Thaivisa has managed to resurrect the Thaivisa Investigation Bureau's meaningless and totally irrelevant handbag fight over the Koh Tao murders .

Without doubt, in a few short hours there will be hundreds of cantankerous, obviously completely uninformed versions of what could have happened and what investigative steps should have originally been taken regurgitated from the last threads by the razor-sharp legal minds that lurk here.

Already some posters are pontificating incorrectly about the legality of the NCA's release of information to the Thai police.

A topic to be avoided at all costs.

[cyberfarang]

It is all a moot point. The police failed to link possession of the phone to the accused, yet the court went with it. Just as the court accepted the confessions which were the result of torture and written by a man who could not speak the language of the accused or Thai with any degree of competency. They also accepted DNA evidence which appears to have been done by a 5 year old in the kitchen and recorded in crayon.

If the court didn't care about any of that then...

What outsiders fail to understand is that in Thailand the judgements and decisions of people in higher authority and in positions of authority like the police and government workers are never to be challenged. There expertise and word alone is gospel and by discrediting them with proof they make critical errors is a massive loss of face, not only for the officers but also for the Thai legal system in general. It is common knowledge that when dealing with government departments and even minor institutes like the electricity company and banks, what a higher ranking member of staff says is the rule.

This is why I think a judge will be more likely swayed by the testaments of the police, even if there is a terrible lack of convincing evidence to find the 2 accused guilty.

[Scouse Twoccer]

Do you really think one can belie the Police in Thailand? Even if possible, I doubt so. DNA evidence is already denied, one can taint material due to be analyzed, there are just too many ways. I doubt there will be a - if not entirely fair - at least open trial.

"I doubt there will be a - if not entirely fair - at least open trial."

You must have missed the fact that there has already been an open trial which found the accused guilty and is now over! The appeal process is now running it's course.

[HOOD Robin]

""Fearing for other British tourists on Koh Tao with the murderers still at large, the NCA acted on this exception, according to Buzzfeed, with the caveat that it be used for intelligence only and not in court.""

But the murderers are STILL at large...

... but they (mostly?) have been behaving themselves.

"but they (mostly?) have been behaving themselves."

REALLY ?

If im not wrong, since the murder on David and Hannah some more farangs were killed on KT....

[hottrader77]

I cannot somehow see that they are guilty as with their size being both small how they could over power david , 1 person would have had to kill him while the other held the girl as she would have run away BUT they were both found behind a rock on the beach so the news said , i also feel why the DNA was not released to british police so they could match it up with these 2 , the only conclusion i can see why this was not done is because of a cover up , and that the killer is probably known to police and could well be a local of an influencial figure on the island , after this happened several other people have died on the island also people have been threatened not to say who they thought it was, there should be a retrial and the DNA evidence produced but i dont know if they could prove weather the DNA produced was actually from that date when t happened. i would never go to koh tao " death island " as it is called , i have come to thailand for 20 years and have never liked going out in the sticks as the law is always on the locals side and it is usually lawless in the sticks here

[SOTIRIOS]

...you walk along...you see a phone on the ground....you pick it up....

...you take it home....you discover that it is broken....probably beyond repair...you chuck it......

...or as someone else suggested...the perps simply tossed it...probably while passing the camp....

...this would have helped the allegation that foreign workers were responsible.....

[Dogmatix]

""Fearing for other British tourists on Koh Tao with the murderers still at large, the NCA acted on this exception, according to Buzzfeed, with the caveat that it be used for intelligence only and not in court.""

But the murderers are STILL at large...

This is pathetic. Unless they are even more dense that the average British bobby, it must have been very obvious to the police who flew to Thailand what was going on in KT. Accepting that there was nothing much they do in the circumstances, since they lacked jurisdictions and due to British govt expediencies in maintaining good relations with the junta, is one thing. They could have just kept their mouths shut and enjoyed the all expenses paid holiday and entertainment laid on for them by the BiB. But it is outrageous to aid abet in death penalty case and then to pretend they were protecting British tourists. In fact they were trying to do exactly the opposite and should be warning tourists that the killers are most likely still at large and ready to rape and kill again with the exactly same impunity.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Dogmatix

[JLCrab]

""Fearing for other British tourists on Koh Tao with the murderers still at large, the NCA acted on this exception, according to Buzzfeed, with the caveat that it be used for intelligence only and not in court.""

But the murderers are STILL at large...

... but they (mostly?) have been behaving themselves.

"but they (mostly?) have been behaving themselves."

REALLY ?

If im not wrong, since the murder on David and Hannah some more farangs were killed on KT....

Such as ...?

[Tanlic]

If you think long and hard about this case and the bad publicity it's had and you know the Thaiappeals procedure then there can be only one outcome.

I reckon it's a moral certainty the courts will squash the death penalty

Incidentally Thailand haven't executed anyone since the lethal injection was first used has nothing to do with my opinion on this

This little incident with the UK police gives them all the excuse they need if not they will come up with something else that does.

[jacky54]

Did they find ANY fingerprints on the phone?

regards Worgeordie

None found on the murder weapon, why should the phone be any different? what a farce

[kinmaew]

Just because you find the deceased broken phone in the back yard of someone it does not mean irrefutably that that person is the killer.

[Moonsterk]

serial number of David Miller’s iPhone which was supposedly found, broken, in a property linked to the two murder suspects.

and before anyone else makes a comment - this changes absolutely nothing, it all comes down to which iphone was found where, an IMEI was submitted for verification, only the Thai police know which phone was found where

The iPhone found at the crime scene was unimportant it seems - and has remained so

nothing new here, this has been discussed over and over on these forums

I would like to know the source of this news article and why it has been released - it adds nothing

who on earth is ................What's on Sukhumvit................seriously

and from the source Buzzfeed news

Lawyers representing the pair said DNA samples from the alleged murder weapon – a garden hoe – did not match that of the two men, and Thailand’s leading forensic scientist told the court that the evidence had been so badly mishandled that it was worthless.

The prosecution case had also rested heavily on sperm samples collected from the crime scene, but when the defence asked to have the DNA independently tested Thai police officers failed to hand it over.

hmmmmm nothing new here

I have never understood how anyone can seize on this " no defendant DNA on hoe" as evidence of anything. Ever heard of using a cloth to hold a murder weapon? Ever heard of wiping down a weapon? It's a big fat nothing

With these sort of defense ploys no wonder they were convicted. They haven't got a chance on appeal with this same team that seems to think having foreigners tell Thai's what's what is a winning strategy.

[Tanlic]

I cannot somehow see that they are guilty as with their size being both small how they could over power david , 1 person would have had to kill him while the other held the girl as she would have run away BUT they were both found behind a rock on the beach so the news said , i also feel why the DNA was not released to british police so they could match it up with these 2 , the only conclusion i can see why this was not done is because of a cover up , and that the killer is probably known to police and could well be a local of an influencial figure on the island , after this happened several other people have died on the island also people have been threatened not to say who they thought it was, there should be a retrial and the DNA evidence produced but i dont know if they could prove weather the DNA produced was actually from that date when t happened. i would never go to koh tao " death island " as it is called , i have come to thailand for 20 years and have never liked going out in the sticks as the law is always on the locals side and it is usually lawless in the sticks here

David was lying on the ground when he was hit according to the reenactment, but even if he wasn't, you get hit with a Thai hoe you are going down no matter what size you are.

The use the same or similar on building sites and women can swing them about never mind a fit Burmese guy.

You got some real good conspiracy theories there straight out of JFK.

[Lancashireman]

In my humble opinion, I think the two lads were at the very least, witnesses to the crime, or the build up to it.

The bar, the alcohol, the drugs, the girls, the locals, the thrill of the hunt, the chase, the testosterone, the conquest, the prize...then the realisation that someone knew something was wrong!

Easy to cloud ones memory, just need to erase the potentials, insert the possibles, and pack them off to a plausible injustice...

The courts have the last word, as we know...

Edited February 16, 2016 by Lancashireman

[boomerangutang]

""Fearing for other British tourists on Koh Tao with the murderers still at large, the NCA acted on this exception, according to Buzzfeed, with the caveat that it be used for intelligence only and not in court.""

But the murderers are STILL at large...

... but they (mostly?) have been behaving themselves.

I know you're trying to be cute, but just because there haven't been any heinous crimes on the island since, ....oh wait a moment, there have been at least 3 mystery deaths of backpacker farang since the double murder. One at AC guest house, and another near In Touch bar. Are they just coincidence, or.....? Don't expect any light to be shed on those deaths by Thai forensics. They're about as useful as a pickaxe at a cupcake factory. 5 unsolved farang deaths in 15 months at one tiny island in Thailand. Mai dee.

The defendants admitted to finding the phone. That's when their story changed to returning back to the beach at 5am to collect their clothes.

One of the two, Wei, not both. They're not Siamese twins nor insignificant little brownies, as Thai officials would like us to think. They're two individuals.

Great. At long last Thaivisa has managed to resurrect the Thaivisa Investigation Bureau's meaningless and totally irrelevant handbag fight over the Koh Tao murders .

Without doubt, in a few short hours there will be hundreds of cantankerous, obviously completely uninformed versions of what could have happened and what investigative steps should have originally been taken regurgitated from the last threads by the razor-sharp legal minds that lurk here.

Already some posters are pontificating incorrectly about the legality of the NCA's release of information to the Thai police.

A topic to be avoided at all costs.

ok, bye bye.

[JLCrab]

""Fearing for other British tourists on Koh Tao with the murderers still at large, the NCA acted on this exception, according to Buzzfeed, with the caveat that it be used for intelligence only and not in court.""

But the murderers are STILL at large...

... but they (mostly?) have been behaving themselves.

I know you're trying to be cute, but just because there haven't been any heinous crimes on the island since, ....oh wait a moment, there have been at least 3 mystery deaths of backpacker farang since the double murder. One at AC guest house, and another near In Touch bar. Are they just coincidence, or.....? Don't expect any light to be shed on those deaths by Thai forensics. They're about as useful as a pickaxe at a cupcake factory. 5 unsolved farang deaths in 15 months at one tiny island in Thailand. Mai dee.

<snip>

Pickaxe at a cupcake factory -- that's good. Did that come from the Analogy generator? Not one of those deaths can be categorized as murder as with the unfortunate late Ms. Witheridge and late Mr. Miller but don't let that stop you.

[deecee10]

As a Brit I'm so p----d off with the UK Authorities contribution to this case and its highly questionable outcome.