AFP, KOH SAMUI: Defence lawyers for two Myanmar migrants charged with killing two British tourists in Thailand criticised police handling of the case as the trial opened Wednesday, accusing them of failing to secure the crime scene or call in medical experts quickly enough.
Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun have both pleaded not guilty to the murder last September of 24-year-old David Miller and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on Koh Tao island, where their bodies were left on a beach just a few hundred yards from the main tourist drag.
Their deaths sent shockwaves across the Gulf of Thailand idyll, which is popular with backpackers and divers, and tarnished Thailand's reputation as a tourist haven.