27 November 2006 :

Bualoy Kothisit, 23, and Wichai Sonkhaoyai, 24, two Thai fishermen convicted of raping and murdering a 21-year-old British tourist on New Year's Day 2006, had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, their lawyer said.
“The court commuted their death sentences on the ground that they had voluntarily confessed their crime," lawyer Prompatchara Namuang said.
The two were found guilty of raping and killing Katherine Horton on the southern resort island of Samui on January 1.
After drinking and watching pornography, the two men found Ms Horton walking down the beach alone as she talked to her mother in Britain on a cellphone.
They raped her and beat her with a beach umbrella before dumping her body at sea.
The victim's mother, Elizabeth, had called for the pair to spend the rest of their lives in jail, saying her daughter would not have believed capital punishment an appropriate sentence. International media attention had prompted then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to call for the "harshest possible punishment" for the men, saying they had damaged Thailand's image and its tourism industry.