TWO Myanmar migrant workers have been sentenced to death by a Thai court for the 2014 murder of two British backpackers on Thailand's Koh Tao island.

Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun will face execution for the killing of David Miller, 24, and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on the picture-postcard resort island in southern Thailand.

"Both defendants are guilty of murder for which the penalty is the death sentence," an unnamed judge told the court, adding that they were also "found guilty of rape and conspiracy to hide the crime".

The pair were grim faced as the verdict was read out while the mother of one of them cried from the gallery as the sentence was passed.

Both men, who arrived at court with their hands and legs shackled, deny killing the British pair, whose battered bodies were found on a beach on September 15, 2014.

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