Aik Pe, 29, and Soe Lwin, 40, were sentenced to death by hanging this week for the murder and rape of an 18-year-old high school student in Dec. 2017.
The Kentung District court in eastern Shan State has sentenced two men to be hanged over the rape and murder of an 18-year-old high school student.
"In this case, a girl was raped, burned to death, and thrown away. An investigation of a ring found on the corpse led to the arrest of the 2 suspects...The district court sentenced them to death by hanging until they definitely die," a Shan State police official said on Sept. 17.
The case began last December, when an unidentified woman's charred body was found near a hydropower station in Kengtung Township. Using a ring found on the body, police identified the woman as one who had been missing for 5 days.
Suspect Soe Lwin, 40, was arrested by police in the town of Kengtung 3 days after the body was found and pleaded guilty to rape and murder the following day.
Suspect Aik Pe, also known as Sai Shen, 29, was arrested in the town of Thazi, where he was on trial for his alleged role in a car accident.
"This is the heaviest sentence ever passed by the district court," a police officer told Eleven.
Murder carries the death penalty in Myanmar, but it has not been carried out in decades. Rape carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence, but as the number of rapes have been rising in Myanmar over the last few years, activists have called for harsher punishments for rapists, including the death penalty.
"Until the death penalty is carried out, this will keep happening," one activists told Coconuts in March. "We need to make an example of at least 10 of these rapists. If we make an example of them, like they do in other countries, this problem will be greatly lessened."
Source: coconuts.co, September 18, 2018
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