Authorities escort a man arrested yesterday who is suspected to be the prime suspect in the Aug. 17 bombing of the Erawan shrine.
A foreign man believed to be the primary suspect in last month’s bombing of the Erawan shrine in Bangkok has been arrested on the Cambodian border, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said.
A foreign man believed to be the primary suspect in last month’s bombing of the Erawan shrine in Bangkok has been arrested on the Cambodian border, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said.
The prime minister said suspect was apprehended while trying to cross the border at Ban Pa Rai in Aranyaprathet district in Sa Kaeo province.
"It's true. He has been arrested at Sa Kaeo checkpoint," Gen Prayut said. "We are interrogating. He is a main suspect and a foreigner."
A conflicting report said a suspect -- a Chinese national suspected to be an Uighur Muslim -- was captured yesterday at the Phnom Penh airport.
He said the person captured was the man seen in CCTV footage Aug. 17 wearing a yellow shirt and leaving a backpack behind at the Ratchaprasong intersection tourist attraction.
Authorities plan to make an official announcement at 5pm about the suspect for whom an arrest warrant had already been issued.
He reportedly was being flown by helicopter back to Bangkok today.
A foreign man believed to be the primary suspect in last month’s bombing of the Erawan shrine in Bangkok has been arrested on the Cambodian border, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said.
National police chief Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang shows bundles of cash totalling three million baht which he is paying to police detectives as a "reward" for arresting a bomb suspect last Saturday. Inset photos show wanted persons Wanna Suansan, 26, of Phang-nga and an unidentified "foreigner in his 40s".
The prime minister said suspect was apprehended while trying to cross the border at Ban Pa Rai in Aranyaprathet district in Sa Kaeo province.
"It's true. He has been arrested at Sa Kaeo checkpoint," Gen Prayut said. "We are interrogating. He is a main suspect and a foreigner."
A conflicting report said a suspect -- a Chinese national suspected to be an Uighur Muslim -- was captured yesterday at the Phnom Penh airport.
He said the person captured was the man seen in CCTV footage Aug. 17 wearing a yellow shirt and leaving a backpack behind at the Ratchaprasong intersection tourist attraction.
Authorities plan to make an official announcement at 5pm about the suspect for whom an arrest warrant had already been issued.
He reportedly was being flown by helicopter back to Bangkok today.
First immigration police and now city police.
Sixteen police, including 10 senior officers, stationed in Nong Chok and Min Buri have been transferred to inactive posts in the wake of the arrest of a suspect in the Erawan bombing and seizure of bomb-making materials.
After the Erawan and Sathorn pier explosions, Metropolitan Police Division 3 asked all police stations in its jurisdiction to inspect apartments, mansions, flats and rented houses where foreigners stayed for clues about the deadly blast.
The two stations reported back that there were no suspicious foreigners or bomb-making materials in their areas.
The chief of Sa Kaeo immigration police, Pol Col Pairat Pukcharoen, and five other officers have been suddenly transferred to Bangkok for an indefinite period for allegedly taking bribes.
National police chief Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang has ordered the six immigration officers to report the RTP's operations centre by 3pm on Sept 3.
The sudden transfer came after a foreign suspect who was arrested at an apartment in Nong Chok district told police that he paid Sa Kaeo immigration police to enter Thailand, Thairath reported.
The man said that he was using a fake passport and took a flight from Turkey to Vietnam before proceeding to Laos.
From Laos, he hired a vehicle to take him to Cambodia, and entered Thailand via the Sa Kaew border checkpoint where he paid 18,000 baht to officials there so that he did not have to use his fake passport to go through a regular immigration procedure.
PM says gang may have Uighur trafficking links
Police believe the two prime bombing suspects in the Erawan and Sathon pier explosions are hiding in Cambodia and have asked Phnom Penh authorities to hunt them down, a Crime Suppression Division (CSD) source said Monday.
Meanwhile, a reporter on Monday night spoke with the most-wanted Thai Muslim woman, who said she has been in Turkey for the past three months and was "shocked" to be accused of the crime on national Thai TV.
A woman who said she is Wanna Suansan, 26, of Phang-nga, with the Muslim name Maisaroh, she had already spoken with police via telephone. Later, she said officers from Bangkok had called her back to tell her not to speak to the media.
The woman who identified herself as Wanna said she was currently living in the central Turkish city of Kayseri with her husband and that she was last in Thailand three months ago.
"I have not been to that apartment for almost one year now," she said, adding that she had sublet the flat to a friend of her husband's.
The woman, said she was horrified to learn via a Thai friend she had been named as a suspect.
"I was very shocked and thought my friend was joking with me," she said, adding she had been in contact with Thai police and was happy to cooperate with investigators.
Meanwhile, a police source said that checks of the woman's travel records found that she left for Dubai on July 1.
Authorities told the Bangkok Post they had spoken to "a relative" of Ms Wanna, who said she is in Turkey and she would be willing to return to Thailand to meet with officers.
Also on Monday, the prime minister admitted that the network involved in the bombings could be linked to human trafficking rings smuggling Uighurs.
He stressed the need for investigators to find out where the suspect bought the bomb-making materials. "The priority is that we must stop perpetrators from being able to obtain bomb-making components in this country," he said.
The prime minister said rental apartments and hotels must carry out stringent background checks when people check in.
A police source said Monday that CSD chief Akkaradej Pimonsri has instructed his deputy, Pol Col Itthipol Atchariyapradit, to ask Cambodian authorities to track down the two wanted men.
That move came after checks by the Immigration Bureau found the pair entered the Cambodian town of Poipet through the Aranyaprathet border checkpoint in Sa Kaeo. The source said that, "Police expect to arrest them shortly".
Based on CCTV footage, one suspect is the man in the yellow T-shirt who allegedly planted the bomb at the Erawan shrine.
The other suspect is the man in a blue shirt who dropped a plastic bag with a suspected explosive device from a footbridge across Sathon canal on Aug 17.
The two are among four suspects wanted on arrest warrants.
Despite only one arrest and no confirmation that he was one of the bombers, national police chief Somyot Poompunmuang awarded a 3-million-baht reward to members of the police team that arrested the man.
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