Bangkok: A second foreign national believed to be the “primary suspect” in Thailand’s deadliest bombing at a Brahma temple here has been arrested at a checkpost on the Cambodian border, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha announced. General Prayut said the male suspect was apprehended while trying to cross the border at Ban Pa Rai in Thailand’s Aranyaprathet district in Sa Kaeo province.”It’s true. He has been arrested at Sa Kaeo checkpoint,” Prayut said, adding, “We are interrogating him. He is a main suspect and a foreigner.”
The Premier did not disclose the nationality of the man. The person is reportedly being flown by helicopter to Bangkok. According to media reports, the man is the one seen in CCTV footage on August 17 wearing a yellow shirt and leaving a backpack reportedly containing the bomb behind at the shrine, a popular tourist attraction. Twenty persons were killed in the blast and more than a 100 hurt. Nation paper quoted Taskforce Major General Srisak Poonprasit as saying that the suspect was spotted by a joint patrol unit of troops and police trying to sneak across the border in Ban Dong Ngu village in Tambon Parai of Aranyaprathet district to Cambodia.
The suspect was found walking with a black backpack in the border forest area. The patrol unit recognised the suspect’s face as being similar to the man seen on the CCTVs, the paper said. Thai police expanded their investigation into the attack yesterday, seizing explosives from a suburban apartment building and warning that the group they are pursuing had been preparing “quite a lot of bombs”.
