By Max Constant

BANGKOK

Thai police have identified the person they consider to be the main organizer of the Aug. 17 bombing in central Bangkok, but say he left the country on the eve of the explosion which killed 20 people and injured over 130 others. 

The Bangkok Post reported Wednesday that a suspect arrested Aug. 1 near the Thai-Cambodian border told investigators during interrogation that a man he knows as “Ishan” arranged several meetings to organize the bombings and assigned tasks to all participants.

The report added that Bangkok South Criminal Court had approved the Metropolitan Police Bureau's arrest warrant request for the man - fully identified as "Abudureheman Abudusataer" from China's Xinjiang region. 

It said Abudusataer had boarded a plane at Bangkok's main international airport on the eve of the bombing, while The Nation added that he had a ticket for Bangladesh.

Thai media have reported that the man arrested Tuesday - who carried a passport bearing the name “Yusufu Mireaili,” also with a Xinjiang birthplace - has said that he gave the bag containing the bomb to a man wearing a yellow shirt at Bangkok's main railway station on the day of the bombing.

The yellow shirted man has been caught on CCTV footage leaving a backpack at the site of the bombing.

The station is a 25-minute walk - a five-minute taxi ride - from the Erawan Shrine where the backpack exploded a few minutes before 7 p.m. (1200GMT).

The Chinese Embassy in Bangkok has not publicly confirmed the authenticity of either passport.

According to a Sunday report by Matichon, Mireaili told his interrogators he then took a taxi to a skywalk overlooking the scene where he took pictures on his mobile phone of the aftermath of the explosion but did not detonate the bomb.

The Bangkok Post has since confirmed the confession.

On Wednesday, police escorted Mireaili - wearing body armor, wrist straps and a bright yellow T-shirt - to the railway station for a re-enactment  - a distinct ritual of Thai law enforcement - of his meeting.

“This is the place where he gave the bag to the man wearing a yellow shirt,” police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri told reporters. 
“Mireaili said the bag was heavy and it was a bomb,” he added.

The suspect was also brought to the Hindu shrine - popular with foreign tourists, particularly Chinese - for a re-enactment of his actions before and after the bombing.

Mireaili’s account, however, diverged from a Saturday report by Matichon quoting forensic police sources, which said that “Yusufu” had assembled the bomb himself and then detonated it from a skywalk near the shrine.

The country's junta leader-cum-prime minister, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, has said that all detained suspects will be tried by civil courts and not by military courts. 

“The justice process has to be universally acceptable,” The Nation reported him as saying Wednesday.

Outside of Mireaili, two other suspects have been arrested, while warrants have been issued for a further 10 people. 

A 28-year-old man whose nationality has still not been determined was arrested Aug. 29 in an apartment block in an eastern Bangkok suburb, where a large amount of bomb-building materials and around 200 fake Turkish passports were discovered.

The man had in his possession a fake passport bearing his image and the name "Adem Karadag".

A Thai Muslim man arrested in Narathiwat in connection with the bombing last week is said by police to be a “key person” in a ring smuggling Uighur - fleeing alleged repression in China - from Thailand.

Thai police are studying a possible link between the bombing and smuggling rings that move Uighur from China - through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar - to Thailand and then Malaysia, from where they fly to third countries.

In July, Bangkok deported 109 Uighur against their wishes to China, where human rights groups have said they face persecution, imprisonment, and possible death sentences.

Thai authorities are wary of making a connection between the deportation and the bombing.

Meanwhile, a prominent Thai Muslim human rights activist has expressed concern for those suspected of involvement in the bombing, telling Anadolu Agency that they have no legal representation and human rights lawyers are reluctant to volunteer given the sensitivity of the case.