Thai court sentences 2 Chinese Uygur men to death for 2015 Bangkok shrine bombing
The worst attack on the city in recent history killed 20, including tourists from China, Malaysia and Singapore
The men, Bilal Mohammed, 41, and Yusufu Mieraili, 36, were arrested in a manhunt that followed the August 17, 2015, bombing which brought carnage to the heart of Bangkok at rush hour.
Thai police said they found bomb-making materials at a Bangkok address used by Mohammed days after the bombing – while Mieraili was arrested a fortnight later in Cambodia.
The pair, whose passports state they were born in China’s Xinjiang region, have been held on remand for the last 11 years and have consistently denied the charges.
But at the end of a trial that stretched over a decade – which critics said was riddled with flaws – the four-judge panel at a Bangkok court found the pair guilty of actions that amounted to premeditated murder and delivered the maximum punishment.
“The defendants committed a single act that violated multiple laws. The court therefore imposed the harshest penalty available under the law, the death sentence,” one judge said, according to Agence France-Presse.