Thailand: 2 Arrested in Tourists’ Deaths

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/world/asia/thailand-2-arrested-in-tourists-deaths.html

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Two migrant workers from Myanmar were arrested on Friday after the police said they had confessed to killing two British tourists whose battered bodies were found on a beach in southern Thailand last month. The national police chief, Gen. Somyot Poompanmoung, said the DNA results backed up the confessions of the two men, who the police said raped and killed Hannah Witheridge, 23, and killed David Miller, 24, on the island of Koh Tao. The police identified the 21-year-old workers from Rakhine State in Myanmar as “Win” and “Saw.” Autopsies showed that Ms. Witheridge died from head wounds; Mr. Miller suffered severe blows to the head and drowned. It is unclear what prompted the killings. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who took power after leading a military coup in May, had stirred controversy by suggesting that bikini-wearing tourists might attract such attacks, a comment for which he has apologized. The two suspects face charges of murder, rape and theft but have not been formally charged, General Somyot said.