Bangkok bombing suspect 'a people smuggler who is refusing to help police'
Asia-Pacific
Bangkok bombing suspect ‘a people smuggler who is refusing to help police’
The suspect arrested over last week’s deadly Bangkok bomb blast was not co-operating, Thailand’s army chief said on Sunday. The unnamed foreigner, who was being held in military custody at an undisclosed location, was allegedly found with bomb-making equipment and multiple passports during a Saturday morning raid on a flat on the eastern outskirts of the city. “The interrogation is not making progress because the suspect is not really giving useful information,” Thai army chief Genl Udomdej Sitabutr said.
We have to conduct further interrogations and make him better understand so he will be more cooperative – while we have to be careful not to violate the suspect’s rights
Thai army chief Gen Udomdej Sitabutr
The blast at the Erawan shrine in a busy Bangkok shopping district on August 17 was Thailand’s worst single mass-casualty attack, killing 20 people. The police investigation has focused on a prime suspect, captured on security footage wearing a yellow T-shirt and leaving a bag at the shrine moments before the blast. On Sunday, police said the Turkish suspect they had arrested was part of a people-smuggling gang who helped illegal migrants obtain counterfeit documents, and the bomb attack was in response to a recent crackdown by the authorities.
He (the suspect) had more than 200 fake passports (when he was arrested). It’s a network that fakes nationalities and sends them (illegal migrants) on to third countries,
National police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri
