Death for Thai murderers of British backpacker

A Thai court today convicted two Thai fishermen for raping and murdering a British tourist at a Thai beach resort and sentenced them to death.

The two defendants, Bualoi Posit, 23, and Wichai Somkhaoyai, 24, had pleaded guilty last week to carrying out a brutal New Year’s Day attack on Katherine Horton, a 21-year-old student from Wales who had been vacationing on the island of Koh Samui in the Gulf of Thailand.

The murder charge carried a maximum penalty of death, and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra made an unusual public appeal for the killers to receive the “hardest punishment” possible, saying the slaying hurt the country’s image and could damage its tourism industry.