The court said on Tuesday that the UK police gave information on the whereabouts of David Miller's phone to Thai investigators, the data that helped prosecutors to prove that the Myanmar suspects and Miller were in the same area, the Guardian reported.
The case was taken to the court by lawyers working for Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun, also known as Win Phyo, who face the death sentences on murdering British backpackers Miller, 24, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, on the island in Surat Thani province on Sept 15, 2014.
The Appeal Court in March upheld the lower court's ruling and the Supreme Court is undecided whether the appeal will be accepted for consideration or thrown out.
Amporn Sungthog, lawyer for the two Myanmar nationals, filed the final appeal with the Supreme Court on Aug 21.
The UK government has tight restrictions on British investigators helping colleagues in countries having the death penalty, according to the Guardian.
The NCA, which is the UK's equivalent of America's FBI, admitted investigators acted unlawfully and should have consulted supervisors in charge of the agency, it added.
Source: Bangkok Post, August 30, 2017
UK police broke law in case of British backpackers murdered in Thailand
The National Crime Agency in the UK has been forced to admit it acted unlawfully when it gave information to Thai police that helped send two men to death row for murdering two British backpackers.
The NCA supplied phone record evidence and intelligence to investigators in Thailand following the September 2014 murders of Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, on the island of Koh Tao.
Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo, both Burmese nationals, were convicted of the murders in 2015 after a trial which the anti-death penalty group Reprieve said was unfair. They face execution by lethal injection, and claim to have been tortured.
On Tuesday, the high court in London found against the NCA – Britain’s version of the FBI – in a case brought by lawyers for Lin and Phyo.
The case is controversial because the government opposes the death penalty overseas. As a result there are tight restrictions on what help British law enforcement can provide to police abroad in cases where suspects may be put to death.
The high court order said that five times the NCA breached government rules designed to prevent UK law enforcement from inadvertently aiding human rights abuses abroad, known as overseas security and justice assistance guidance (OSJG).
Following the murders, the NCA passed Miller’s phone location data to Thai police, enabling prosecutors to say the suspects were in the same area as their alleged victim.
The NCA admitted the data-sharing was unlawful, as was the passing on of other material.
The court order also said the NCA ignored rules on seeking authority from its own directors or Home Office ministers, holding only an “informal conversation” with a British diplomat in Bangkok “about the generic death penalty risks”.
“The NCA misinterpreted the guidance … as a result of wrongly placing reliance on (a) a working understanding that the Thai authorities would make a formal request if they wanted to use information in evidence and that the question of death penalty assurances could be considered at that stage, and (b) the risk of the death penalty in fact being carried out, as distinct from the risk of it being imposed.”
The order continued: “Ministerial authorisation will be required for any assistance that might directly or significantly contribute to use of the death penalty where effective mitigation is not available unless the urgent criteria provided for in the guidance are met.”
The NCA accepted in court that it was required to consult departmental ministers.
Reprieve said the evidence and intelligence was used selectively against Lin and Phyo, and that the NCA material potentially pointed to other suspects that could have bolstered the defence case. However, this information was not given to the defence team.
Maya Foa, the director of Reprieve, said: “It is bad enough that the NCA secretly handed over evidence to help secure death sentences in a country known for unfair trials and torture. But they now admit they did this illegally, without any proper thought that their actions could contribute to a grave miscarriage of justice with two men now facing execution.
“UK cooperation with foreign police and security forces should be open and transparent. Government agencies shouldn’t have to be dragged through the courts for the public to know what is being done with their money.”
Lawyers for Lin and Phyo told the court that the data from Miller’s phone was “the only data that was used as evidence by the prosecution at [the murder] trial”.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office guidance, issued in 2016, said it was the UK’s longstanding policy to oppose the death penalty “in all circumstances as a matter of principle”.
The NCA said it was unable to comment on the case “until the court has sealed the order, which is a formality of settlement”.
Source: The Guardian, Vikram Dodd, August 30, 2017
Koh Tao’s dark side: dangers of island where Britons were murdered
This article was originally published in November 2014.
Six weeks on, there is little to mark the spot on the idyllic rocky beach inlet on Koh Tao where Hannah Witheridge and David Miller met such brutal deaths; just two tiny piles of stones separated by a line of twigs in the sand, someone’s modest, anonymous, temporary memorial.
A few hundred yards away along Sairee beach, the main tourist drag on the Thai holiday island, life continues as normal. Business, says a French man running a dive shop – much of Koh Tao’s tourism is based around diving – is actually busier than expected for the monsoon season. “After the murders you did notice that there were fewer people for a bit. But it was only really the British that stayed away. With everyone else, they didn’t even really notice.”
If this appears curious then Koh Tao, the smallest and most remote among a trio of tourism-dominated islands in the Gulf of Thailand, abounds in such paradoxes.
It is a place where visitors spend their days learning the rigorous safety standards of diving before hopping, without helmets and clad in shorts and vest, on to rickety rental motorbikes. Tourist deaths are not unknown – two bodies of drowned westerners were found in the sea within a couple of days this month – but it is known as one of the safer spots in Thailand.
The biggest contradiction centres around the deaths of Witheridge, 23, and Miller, 24 – the British backpackers brutally beaten on the head yards from their hotel, the former also raped, the latter left to drown in shallow surf. Just about everyone on Koh Tao insists visitors are safe, but many also agree, quietly, that the Burmese migrant workers arrested for the murders are innocent – meaning the real killer or killers remain at large.
The island, two hours by boat from the nearest airport, has a low-key, undeveloped feel and mainly attracts younger backpackers. But the ramshackle charm and gentle, palm-dotted beaches are drawing more visitors each year, necessitating new workers.
Many are Burmese, with around 3,000 now on Koh Tao, according to one community leader. “The migrants come here for just one reason – they want a better life, and they’re looking for a job so they can send money back home,” said the man who, like almost everyone else on the island, asked to not be named.
Increasing numbers of Burmese staff the bars and restaurants, in part due to their competent English – an educational legacy of British rule in their home country.
More than 3 million Burmese live in Thailand. As well as low pay and poor conditions, rights groups say, the frequently undocumented migrants face regular and open discrimination, and it is not unknown for police to wrongly blame them for crimes. As the hunt for the Britons’ killers dragged into a third week and the junta’s prime minister, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, said migrants were the most likely culprits, there was understandable nervousness on Koh Tao.
Source: The Guardian, Peter Walker, November 23, 2014
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