Thai court sentences 2 Chinese Uygur men to death for 2015 Bangkok shrine bombing

A Thai court on Thursday sentenced two ethnic Chinese Uygur men to death for the 2015 bombing of Bangkok’s Erawan shrine. 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.

“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 member of the four-judge panel said, according to Agence France-Presse.

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.

Thai soldiers inspect the scene of a bomb blast at the Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok on August 17, 2015. Photo: AFP

The pair, whose passports said they were born in China’s Xinjiang region, have been held on remand for the last 11 years and have denied the charges throughout.

The trial has been beset by delays and controversy, including after the arrest of a translator over alleged drug use and prolonged detention of the suspects in military custody.