BANGKOK -- Thai authorities arrested a man they believe is part of a group responsible for a deadly bombing at a shrine in central Bangkok two weeks ago, the prime minister announced Tuesday.
Spokesmen for police and the military junta that rules Thailand said the suspect resembles the yellow-shirted man in a surveillance video who police say planted the bomb.
"It would be great if he were [the bomber]. Then we will know who they are, where they came from, who's behind this," Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said.
Prayuth said the man is a foreigner and was detained in eastern Thailand near the Cambodian border, one of several border crossings where authorities set up checkpoints after the Aug. 17 bombing, which killed 20 people, many of them foreign tourists, and injured more than 120.
Prayuth said authorities plan to check the man's fingerprints and conduct DNA tests. Police have said they obtained the bomber's DNA from taxis that he used.
Prayuth said officials knew from their investigation that people involved in the bombing were about to flee the country, and had traced the man to Aranyaprathet district in Sa Kaeo province, a crossing point to Cambodia. The prime minister described the man as a piece in a jigsaw puzzle that would connect various parts of the case, which included a bomb that exploded harmlessly in a river next to a busy pier in Bangkok the day after the shrine blast.
Prayuth warned against speculating about the arrested man until more information is learned.
"Don't say just yet it's about this and that. It could affect international affairs," he said. "We have to do a lot of tests, fingerprints. If he is the guy, he is the guy."
"Officials are certain he is a main suspect in this case," national police spokesman Prawut Thawornsiri said later at a news conference, adding that authorities are waiting for witnesses to confirm whether he is the yellow-shirted man. Prawut said the man is being held by the military under Article 44 of its interim constitution, which gives the prime minister absolute power to issue any order deemed necessary to keep public order or strengthen public unity.
Prawut said three more arrest warrants have been issued in connection with the case, bringing the total to seven. Two were identified by names -- he could not provide spellings for the names of the men, whose nationalities were unknown -- while the third was not identified by name but was described as a Turkish national. He displayed pictures of the three on a tablet computer.
Security officials on Saturday arrested a man during a raid on a Bangkok apartment that contained some bomb-making materials, and Thai military authorities have been interrogating him. He has been linked to the shrine bombing, but the authorities have not yet released his name or nationality.
Arrest warrants were issued Monday for two other suspects, a Thai woman and a man of unknown nationality, after a raid Sunday on a second apartment, which also contained bomb-making materials. Relatives of the woman who had rented the apartment told authorities that she is innocent and is now in Turkey, married to a Turkish man.
The three arrest warrants announced Tuesday were related to the apartment raided Saturday, Prawut said.
A Section on 09/02/2015