Thai king commutes sentences of two men on death row for killing British backpackers

The King of Thailand has commuted the death sentence of two men on death row for killing a pair of British backpackers on a Thai island in 2014 to life imprisonment.

The bodies of 23-year-old Hanna Witheridge and 24-year-old David Miller were discovered in September 2014 on a beach on Koh Tao, a small island in the Gulf of Thailand.

They had sustained severe head injuries. Witheridge had been raped.

Two Burmese men, Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo were arrested almost two weeks after the bodies were found. In 2015, they were both found guilty and sentenced to death. Now, they will instead face life imprisonment, said Nakhon Chompuchat, the two men's defence lawyer.

On Friday, the Thai king passed a mass royal pardon for those on death row who have exhausted all appeal options and have never before received a royal pardon.

The royal pardon was created in the spirit of the king's birthday, to offer convicted prisoners the opportunity to "reverse their behavior and become good citizens," says the text of the law.

The murders on the popular dive island of Koh Tao drew intense media attention from across the world.

The defence argued that the investigation was flawed due to "alleged mishandling of forensic evidence, abuse of suspects and intimidation of witnesses."

The two men, from Myanmar's Rakhine state, were working in the hospitality industry on the island at the time of the killings. After their arrest, they confessed but later recanted, saying their admissions of guilt were made under duress.