By Max Constant
BANGKOK
Progress has been made in the investigation into a fatal Bangkok bombing as Malaysian police announced the arrest of two suspects and Bangkok requested Beijing’s help in arresting another believed to have fled to China, local media reported Saturday.
The arrests came after a Thai police team traveled to Malaysia to coordinate an investigation to track down a man seen on security cameras placing a bag containing a bomb at a Hindu shrine in Bangkok on Aug. 17, according to the Bangkok Post.
The “yellow-shirted man” had crossed the Thai-Malaysian border at Sungai Kolok in southern Narathiwat province with the help of a people smuggling network, the report added.
No information was provided, however, by Malaysian police on the identities of the two arrested suspects.
A Thai police source quoted by the Post said that Police General Suchart Teerasawat, who had led the delegation to Malaysia this week, was currently in Thailand’s southern Yala province to work on the eventual extradition of the suspects.
Thailand has an extradition treaty with Malaysia.
In another development, Thai junta-leader-cum-Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha said Friday he had asked Chinese authorities for help in finding a suspect considered the main organizer of the bombing who holds a Chinese passport with northwestern Xinjiang province listed as his birthplace.
Abu Dustar Abdulrahman - aka “Izaan” - had left Thailand for Bangladesh on the eve of the bombing, according to local media.
On Friday, some foreign media quoted Nazrul Islam, Bangladeshi police spokesperson, as saying the suspect had left Bangladesh for China on Aug. 30.
Bangladesh’s Embassy in Bangkok released a statement Friday, saying that “law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh are investigating the case and will share all relevant information with Thai authorities, all other concerned countries and international agencies including Interpol.”
Concerning the motive behind the bombing, Thai police spokesperson Prawut Thavornsiri stuck on Friday to the narrative that it was an act of retaliation by a network smuggling people across the southern border who lost money after a recent crackdown.
Following the discovery of over 30 corpses of Rohingya in jungle camps on May 1, Thai authorities had launched a crackdown that led to the arrest of numerous suspected human traffickers - including a Thai general - and trafficking boats being stayed at sea.
The Post reported that the Narathiwat-based smuggling network involved in the bombing is among the main syndicates in Thailand.
The network, according to security sources cited by the Post, produces fake passports for Middle Eastern, African, Chinese and Thai people, as well as for the Muslim Uighur and Rohingya minorities.
Rohingya are fleeing Myanmar, while Uighur are leaving Xinjiang in China - both claiming persecution.
Bangkok deported 109 Uighur to China in July, separating families, troubling human rights groups, and infuriating Uighur organizations worldwide.
But Thai authorities have been wary of publicly establishing a connection between the deportation and the bombing, which left 20 people dead and more than 130 others injured.
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