Shrine bomber no longer in Malaysia
The yellow-shirted man suspected of planting the deadly bomb at the Erawan shrine last month is believed to have left Malaysia, deputy national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda says.
The yellow-shirted man suspected of planting the deadly bomb at the Erawan shrine last month is believed to have left Malaysia, deputy national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda says.
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Deputy chief Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda says the main bomb suspect entered Thailand on a Chinese passport issued in Xinjiang, and has successfully fled Thailand through Malaysia. (Main photo by Apichart Jinakul)
Shrine bomb suspect 'has left Malaysia'
Post Reporters
The yellow-shirted man suspected of planting the deadly bomb at the Erawan shrine last month is believed to have left Malaysia, deputy national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda says.
Pol Gen Chakthip, who is overseeing the probe into the shrine blast on Aug 17 and the Sathon pier bombing the following day, was speaking Wednesday after returning from a trip to Malaysia to follow up on the case.
He said the yellow-shirted suspect has been identified, but refused to name him.
He travelled to Malaysia after police there announced they had arrested three suspects – two Malaysians and a Pakistani – for having links to the Bangkok city blasts.
The suspect had entered Thailand more than once with a Chinese passport that stated he was from the Xinjiang region, said Pol Gen Chakthip, adding that police believed he sneaked into Malaysia two or three weeks ago though no record of his exit had been found.
"It is likely that he has now left Malaysia," said Pol Gen Chakthip who will take the helm of the police force after Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang retires at the end of this month.
He said Pol Lt Gen Suchart Teerasawat, a police inspector-general, will travel to Malaysia today to follow up the case with Malaysian authorities.
He said Thai police told their Malaysian counterparts that according to Thai information, the trio were involved in helping bomb cell suspects to flee, but Malaysian authorities had not confirmed this.
The three were, however, definitely involved with a network smuggling people into Malaysia, he said.
Metropolitan Police Bureau chief Sriwara Rangsipramanakul (right) said Turkish embassy officials have not been able to confirm whether the passports seized from the Pool Anant apartment in Nong Chok district on Aug 29 are genuine or fake. THANARAK KHUNTON
Meanwhile, Pol Gen Somyot denied he attributed the bombings to the Thai government's decision to deport 109 Uighur migrants back to China in July.
He insisted the blasts were in retaliation for the government's suppression of human trafficking gangs involved in the long-standing smuggling of Uighurs through Thailand.
On Tuesday, Pol Gen Somyot told reporters that the Erawan bombing and July's attack on the Thai consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, were sparked by the same issue.
The consulate was ransacked following outrage after Thailand deported the Uighurs to China.
In response to Turkish authorities' denials that the prime bomb plotter suspect Abudureheman "Ishan" Abudusataer had travelled from Bangladesh and entered Turkey, the police chief said that Turkey would not have evidence of the suspect's arrival if he had sneaked through an unofficial border crossing.
Police and Turkish embassy officials on Wednesday inspected 251 passports seized from the Pool Anant apartment in Nong Chok district on Aug 29.
However, Metropolitan Police Bureau chief Sriwara Rangsipramanakul said Turkish embassy officials have not been able to confirm whether the passports are genuine or fake. The documents had to be taken to Turkey for them to be verified.
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