BANGKOK – Royal Thai Police Spokesman Pol Lt Gen PiyaUthayo, has dismissed foreign media criticism of the police forensic investigation into the 2014 Koh Tao murder case, as allegedly not in accordance with international standards.
The police spokesman cited an article posted online by Fairfax newspapers and written by Lindsay Murdoch with statements made by Jane Taupin, an Australian expert in autopsy and forensic science who visited Thailand in July 2016 as a forensic science witness.
The forensic expert who was not invited to join the judicial process in the police investigation into the murder case, accused the police’s forensic science laboratory of not being trustworthy.
Pol Lt Gen Piya confirmed the police had produced DNA samples of both defendants in court, saying they were the same as those collected at the crime scene. That led to the court sentencing the murder suspects to death. The two remain in prison in Thailand.
The police spokesman confirmed the Office of the Police Forensic Science operates under the same standards as those followed by the FBI and has undertaken its forensic work in a scrupulous manner.
The DNA tests were conducted by the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Police Hospital and the Office of the Police Forensic Science under examinable international standards. The police officers who carried out the forensic probe appeared in court as witnesses and gave detailed explanations to address inquiries and objections raised by the defendants’ lawyer.
The case which arose in 2014 was the murder of two British tourists, namely David Miller and Hannah Witheridge on Koh Tao island off Surat Thani. Two Myanmar nationals, namely Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun, were arrested. In August 2019, the Supreme Court endorsed the sentence passed by the first court and the Appeals Court confirming the death penalty for both convicts.
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