National police chief Somyot Pumpunmuang said today (Sept 15) that Turkey denied Mr Abususataer, better known as “Ishan”, had flown from Dhaka to Istanbul via New Delhi and Abu Dhabi on Aug 30, as asserted by a joint investigative team of Thai police and the Bangladeshi embassy in Bangkok.
The August 17 blast at the Ratchaprasong intersection shrine and the failed bombing of the Sathorn pier the following day are connected to the July 9 attack on the Thai consulate-general in Istanbul, he said. Both stem from Turkish anger over Thailandʼs forced repatriation of 109 Uighur Muslims to China in July, Pol Gen Somyot added.
Thailand disrupted the networkʼs movement of the migrants when it captured them and placed them in a detention camp in southern Thailand last year before deporting them blindfolded and under armed guard, Pol Gen Somyot said.
The country then launched a major crackdown on human traffickers following the discovery of mass Rohingya Muslim and Bangladeshi graves on the Malaysian border on May 1.
“Put simply, we destroyed their business,” the police chief told his daily media briefing.
As the hunt for Ishan goes on, police also are continuing their hunt fo the yellow-shirted man believed to have placed the pipe bomb at the Erawan shrine, as well as suspects in the pier bombing and their international supporters.
Pol Gen Somyot said today he could not confirm a report that the yellow-shirted bomber had fled to Pakistan, one of several countries the Royal Thai Police is coordinating search efforts with.
A Pakistani and two Malaysians were arrested in Malaysia in the past few days and deputy police chief Chakthip Chaichinda and a team of investigators today left for Kuala Lumpur to determine if the men had any useful information on the bombings, Pol Gen Somyot said.
Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said in an interview yesterday (Sept 14) that the suspects were arrested under Malaysiaʼs security law.
“Police have arrested three individuals, including a Pakistani national, whom police believe can shed some light into the Bangkok bombing incidents,” the New York Times quoted him as saying.
Somyot also addressed details regarding two suspects already in custody, a 40-year-old woman brought for questioning after a police search of an apartment near the Thai Chamber of Commerce University yesterday, and Adem Karadag, 28, who was arrested at the Pool Anant apartments in Nong Chok district on Aug 29.
Pol Gen Somyot said the female suspect told police investigators she had hailed a taxi for a man in a blue shirt believed to be the Sathorn bomber. The information has yet to be verified and further investigation was needed, he said.
As for Mr Karadag, also known as Bilal Mohammed, Pol Gen Somyot said police also did not believe comments from his lawyer, Chuchart Kanpha, that the suspect in custody at the 11th Military Circle was not involved in the bomb plots.
The lawyer said his client was a Turkish national who entered Thailand illegally, but nothing more. He said today that he went to the prison on Nakhon Chaisi Rd. Before he did, the lawyer insisted his client went to Vietnam in April where he obtained a fake passport under the name of Adem Karadag.
He then stayed in Laos for 35 days before a broker named Abdulloh brought him to Thailand on Aug 21, Mr Chuchart said.
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