On Tuesday, a Chinese court sentenced four members of a Myanmar drug gang to death for hijacking two Chinese cargo boats and kidnapping and killing 13 Chinese crewmembers on the Mekong River last year.
The defendants, including two other gang members who received lesser sentences, were charged with “intentional homicide, drug trafficking, kidnapping and ship hijacking,” as reported by the Associated Press.
Richard P. Cronin, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Stimson Center, said the court decision raises more questions than it answers, especially about the nine Thai soldiers who were also accused of involvement in the attack but who have not been tried in court. “There is no answer to what really happened, what really transpired on those boats, who actually killed the sailors or why the boats would have been found with more than a million dollars worth of amphetamines,” he said.