CHIANG MAI resident Sakharin Karuehas, who was detained for allegedly setting fire to a department store in Nakhon Si Thammarat, will face another serious charge of possessing an explosive substance in connection with the bombings and arson attacks last week, a police source said yesterday.

There has been widespread speculation that Sakharin, who works on an oil rig in the Gulf of Thailand, was wrongfully arrested because his image was captured by a closed-circuit camera. He is currently being detained under the absolute power granted by the interim charter’s Article 44 but the source said he would soon be transferred to police custody.

Deputy police chief Pol General Sriwara Rangsiphrammanakul told Nakhon Si Thammarat police to revoke the previous arrest warrant against Sakharin on the arson charge and collect evidence for the new allegation of possessing explosive materials, the source said.

Sriwara would seek an arrest warrant from a military court to extend the suspect’s detention, according to the same source.

Sakharin was arrested on Saturday at the oil rig where he works after a string of bombings rocked Prachuap Khiri Khan and six southern provinces, including tourist spots such as Phuket, Samui and Hua Hin, on Thursday and Friday. The attacks killed four people and injured more than 30 others, including foreigners.

Sakharin’s arrest has been widely questioned because of the perceived paucity of evidence.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan defended the arrest, saying the image captured by CCTV indicated that Sakharin was guilty. “Don’t say we got the wrong guy, that is not true. Our investigation has made some progress. Don’t put pressure on officials,” Prawit told reporters yesterday.

Human rights groups have also questioned an arrest warrant issued for a suspect from Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district.

Cross Cultural Foundation director Pornpen Khongkachon-kiet said the police’s evidence gathering and suspect identification methods were unclear, leaving room for speculation about the integrity of the investigation.

An arrest warrant was issued on Tuesday for Ahama Lengha, the suspect from Tak Bai district, who allegedly was responsible for planting a bomb at Phuket’s Patong Beach. The bomb was detected before it was detonated.

“There is doubt about how the police collected the evidence from the bomb site in Phuket and linked it to the suspect from the Tak Bai incident in 2004,” said Pornpen, who works intensively on cases in the deep South. “So it is still unclear where the evidence came from and its validity.”

The Tak Bai incident refers to the killing of four protesters in the district in October 2004, and the subsequent deaths of another 78 protesters who were suffocated or crushed to death while being transported by authorities to Pattani province.

In her experience, Pornpen said officials usually picked up unrelated materials at crime scenes such as cigarette butts, which were used to identify suspects who might not be involved in the case, but are subject to interrogation under special security laws.

Meanwhile, Sittipong Chantra-raviroj, secretary-general of the Muslim Attorney Centre, said he might provide legal assistance to Ahama to help to protect his rights.

Authorities have been struggling with the investigation since the bombing and arson attacks last week with many theories about the attacks, ranging from domestic sabotage connected to the August 7 referendum on the draft constitution to the insurgency in the predominantly Muslim deep South.

The government has sought assistance from Malaysia after finding a Malaysian mobile phone and SIM at one of the crime scenes in Phuket that might have been used for detonation.

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday said Malaysian authorities had already received evidence from their Thai counterparts, but he had not talked to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak about the investigation while he was in Kuala Lumpur for a conference on Tuesday.

However, Malaysia’s Bernama news agency yesterday quoted Malaysia’s Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar as saying preliminary investigations had not yet determined whether the SIM card had originated in Malaysia.

Meanwhile, a combined military and police taskforce yesterday arrested an unidentified man at Pattani’s Nong Chik district hospital based on information provided by another man who was arrested in Krabi, which was also the target of a bombing last week.

 

POLICE YESTERDAY sought an arrest warrant for a suspect from the southernmost province of Narathiwat, claiming a suspicious link between the spate of bomb attacks in Prachuap Khiri Khan and six southern provinces and the ongoing insurgency in the predominantly Muslim deep South.

Former National Security Council chief Lt-General Paradorn Pattanathabutr warned yesterday that the government should not rule out the possibility that the separatist Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) movement played a role in the recent bomb and arson attacks.

The string of attacks rocked seven provinces, mainly tourist destinations such as Phuket, Koh Samui and Hua Hin. The attacks claimed four lives and injured more than 30 others, including foreign tourists.

Many foreign analysts have suggested that the insurgents in the deep South might have expanded their operations to areas outside their traditional territory, but the government has maintained an official line that the incidents were “domestic sabotage” motivated by the August 7 draft charter referendum.

Paradorn, however, said he is confident about his theory due to the depth of his involvement in addressing the insurgency in the South. He formerly led a government delegation in peace talks with the BRN in 2013.

“I felt something was wrong when Malaysia decided to seal its border before the attacks. The telephone signals used in detonating the bombs came from Malaysia,” he said.

He said he believed the BRN launched the attacks in retaliation for the government’s failure to proceed with peace talks.

One of three suspects in the attacks has been identified as Ahama Lengha from Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district, who is suspected of planting a bomb in Phuket’s popular Patong beach last Wednesday.

Deputy police chief Pol General Sriwara Rangsiphrammanakul said evidence gathered from the scene and presented to Nakhon Si Thammarat Military Court showed DNA that matched that on file in Ahama’s criminal record in Narathiwat.

Ahama has reportedly been involved in many attacks in Tak Bai district and would be key to leading investigators to the mastermind behind the attacks, Sriwara said.

Pol Maj-General Apichat Bunsiriroj, commander of Surat Thani Provincial Police, said surveillance cameras had recorded images of two other suspects planting bombs in the province on Thursday. Their identities were not released as of press time yesterday.

In the case of Chiang Mai resident Sakharin Karuehas, who was detained for allegedly setting a department store in Nakhon Si Thammarat on fire, Sriwara said police had sought his arrest based on the available evidence.

It is widely believed that Sakharin, who works at an oil rig in the Gulf of Thailand, was wrongly arrested because his image was captured on a closed-circuit camera. He is currently being detained under the absolute power granted by the interim charter’s Article 44 as authorities consider releasing him.

Prayut, Najib “did not discuss issue”

Sriwara said the suspect would be handed over to police after a seven-day period, which would allow officials to consider releasing him on bail.

National police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda said police were working to identify other suspects who he said were still hiding in the Kingdom.

“We want to catch them all, but it still relies on the evidence we have against them. We are working against time, but this task cannot be rushed and we have to investigate very carefully,” he said.

Many points in the cases were very clear and investigators would see the big picture very soon, he added.

“Judging from what I saw while inspecting the site in Hua Hin on Monday, the investigation team is working very hard and the job is nearly 70-per-cent complete,” he said.

Chakthip said comments about the BRN‘s role were just speculation and everybody would know who was behind the attack after the truth was disclosed.

The government has been struggling since last week to identify who was behind the attacks and their motives.

Senior government officials said earlier that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha would raise the issue with his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak during a summit in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

However, the premier’s secretary-general General Wilas Arunsri, who accompanied Prayut in the trip, said the premier only attended a two-hour discussion forum and did not speak personally to Najib or other attending leaders. Prayut also refused to talk to reporters upon his return from Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry was the latest to issue a statement yesterday condemning the attacks. In the statement, it expressed sympathy for the Kingdom and extended condolences to the families of the victims.

 

PRIME Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha will seek help from his Malaysian counterpart in regard to the ongoing investigation into the bomb and arson attacks last week while visiting Kuala Lumpur today, Deputy Premier Prawit Wongsuwan has said.

Prayut and Malaysian premier Najib Razak are due to attend the 1st International Conference on Blue Ocean Strategy today to discuss economic and innovation issues with counterparts from Polynesia, South Asia and Africa.

Four people were killed and dozens injured in a spate of bomb attacks in seven Thai provinces last Thursday and Friday. The crisis would be raised during a bilateral meeting between the Thai and Malaysian leaders, deputy government spokesperson Maj-Gen Werachon Sukondhapatipak said.

Earlier, Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama reported that Thai authorities had sought help from Malaysian officials to track a mobile phone used in a bomb attack in Phuket last Friday as the phone was said to have come from Malaysia.

Theories are also circulating that Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the independence movement active in Pattani and northern Malaysia, may be linked with the attacks, given to the group’s capabilities, operating patterns and habit of not claiming responsibility for attacks.

However, Thai police have denied the assumption and given more weight to motives related to the August 7 referendum in which the majority of voters backed the new charter draft.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, security adviser to Deputy PM and Defence Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan, echoed similar thoughts.

“The blasts were obviously driven by political motives. They wanted to make up and manipulate these situations,” Panitan told BBC Thailand. “We have to see who lost their benefits the most from the currently progressive political developments.”

Prayut said earlier that people involved in the attacks had taken action before voting day, but there had been no conclusive evidence.

“Please allow officers some time to work on the matter. As things still remain unclear, please also be careful of what you say,” Prayut told reporters after presiding over a special meeting with high-ranking security officers.

Prawit, meanwhile, said he was confident that the blasts last week were not an extension of the southern insurgency, although they could have been carried out by militants.

‘Driven by domestic factors’

“[The blasts] must have been driven by domestic factors. There is no involvement from foreign countries,” Prawit said. “The incidents happened on August 12 [HM the Queen’s birthday and Mother’s Day] and also after the referendum. This could lead to many possibilities [in regard to motives].”

Prawit also said two kinds of bombs were used in the incidents but refused to disclose other details.

Meanwhile, National Police Chief Chakthip Chaijinda said the attacks were not connected to last year’s deadly explosion at Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine.

“We have worked with Malaysian police to check the origin of Samsung Hero mobile phones used in the August 11-12 incidents since this model is only sold in Malaysia. Malaysian authorities have been very cooperative, as we are investigating if the suspects also fled to Malaysia,” he said.

Chakthip said police were gathering more evidence before asking the court to issue arrest warrants for additional suspects while urging the public to come forward if they have information about people possibly involved in the attacks.

Colonel Piyapong Klinphun, Spokesman for the National Council for Peace and Order, said people have been interrogated by the military following the attacks as police and other authorities work together to investigate motives behind the attacks.