Bangkok (AFP) – Two Chinese Uyghur men were sentenced to death on Thursday for carrying out a 2015 attack on a Bangkok shrine that killed 20 people, a long-awaited verdict in Thailand’s deadliest bombing case.

A Thai court convicted Yusufu Mieraili and Bilal Mohammed of premeditated and attempted murder for their role in planting a bomb at the popular Erawan Shrine in Bangkok’s commercial heart in August 2015.

The deadly blast tore apart the site where worshippers and tourists had gathered, injuring more than 100 people and leaving the shrine littered with motorbike fragments and singed debris.

Multiple Chinese tourists were among the dead when explosives – apparently left in a backpack – detonated.

“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 Thursday as the lengthy verdict was read out.

The defendants – both Chinese nationals who arrived in court in prison garb – were acquitted of charges stemming from a separate bombing at a pier in Bangkok’s Charoen Nakhon area.

Following the verdict, Mieraili said: “RIP Thailand’s justice system. I don’t accept any of this. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Choochat Kanpai, the defendants’ lawyer, told reporters the defendants “will appeal the ruling because there are many aspects of the case that the court has not fully considered, including the treatment of the defendants during the proceedings”.

The decade-long trial over the horrific attack was beset by delays due to coronavirus disruptions and problems securing translators.

The blast came weeks after Thailand’s then-ruling junta forcibly repatriated 109 Uyghurs to China, where rights groups say the Muslim minority face cultural and religious repression.

The timing prompted speculation that the attack was part of a revenge plot against a country that had been a key transit hub for Uyghurs as Thailand’s then-military leaders grew closer to Beijing.

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