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September 06, 2015•Update: September 06, 2015
By Max Constant
BANGKOK
A suspect arrested in connection with last month’s fatal bombing in Bangkok is a chemical engineer who is likely to have assembled the bomb and detonated it with a remote system, according Thai media reported Saturday.
Referring to the suspect by the name on a Chinese passport he was carrying when he was arrested near the Cambodian border Tuesday, Matichon online reported “Yusufu Mieraili has a chemical engineering degree from a well-known Chinese university.”
The Chinese Embassy has not publicly confirmed the authenticity of the passport, which was given to the mission several days ago and lists the suspect’s birthplace as Xinjiang – a northwestern province populated mostly by Muslim Uighur.
Matichon, the website of a well-respected Thai daily, quoted forensic police sources as saying the suspect is believed to have assembled the bomb that killed 20 people Aug. 17 at a Hindu shrine popular with tourists, especially Chinese.
“On the day of the bombing, he brought the backpack containing the bomb and gave it to the yellow-shirted man, who then left the bag at the shrine,” according to the sources. “Then, Yusufu went onto a skywalk nearby the shrine and used a remote control device to detonate the bomb.”
While still to be confirmed, Matichon’s account is the most detailed so far of how the Erawan Shrine bombing was carried out.
The suspect wearing a yellow shirt, caught on CCTV footage leaving a rucksack at the site, is still on the run, according to police spokesperson Prawut Thanvornsiri.
The admission Friday came after tests showed that the DNA of the man arrested near the border -- who police are referring to as “Yusufu” despite not confirming his identity -- did not match that taken from scraps of the rucksack containing the bomb.
The suspect had admitted during interrogation that he was in the vicinity of the bomb scene at the time of the explosion, but has denied having placed the bomb himself.
Meanwhile, the first suspect to be arrested in connection with bombing was transferred Saturday to a prison in eastern Bangkok after a court approved a 12-day detention period.
Under a decree enacted by the Thai junta, suspects who formal charges have not been brought against can be detained for seven periods of 12 days, or a total of 84 days.
The first suspect was arrested a week ago during a police raid on an apartment in a Bangkok suburb where they discovered bomb-making materials and a stash of around 200 forged Turkish passports.
His DNA also did not match that of the man caught on CCTV footage.
Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya said Friday that the Anti-Money Laundering Office had identified the money trails of suspects – both those detained and those being pursued under arrest warrants in relation to the bombing.
“The information will help the office to identify where the suspects’ money came from,” Koomchaya told the Bangkok Post, without providing more details.
A third man arrested this week has been identified as a "key people smuggler" by police, who said Friday that he had helped some of the perpetrators of the attack leave Thailand.
The man -- arrested Tuesday in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat -- was initially reported as being arrested for trying to contact a Thai Muslim woman by telephone after a warrant was issued for her arrest.
"Security sources said they had received a tip-off that the man [Kamarudeng Saho] was a key member of a human-trafficking ring based in Sungai Kolok [in southern Thailand]," the Bangkok Post reported.
Southern Thailand is the entry point to Muslim Malaysia, where many migrants -- Bangladeshi, and Muslim Uighur and Rohingya -- have been trying to travel to, to secure employment and often flights to third countries.
The 38-year-old man - a Thai Muslim from Narathiwat province who was arrested by the military Tuesday, is currently being detained at a military facility in Bangkok.
Thavornsiri said Thursday that Saho had been arrested because he had tried to contact Wanna Suansan -- also from southern Thailand -- who police have said rented apartments in which bomb-making equipment were found.
A warrant has also been issued for the woman’s husband, who police say is a Turkish national.
The security sources quoted by the Post on Friday said Saho is “a key member of a human trafficking network smuggling Rohingya and Uighur from Myanmar to Thailand.”
