Thai police: 1 suspect sought for bombings in south

By Max Constant

BANGKOK

Shortly after a Thai military court issued arrest warrants for 17 people, police have insisted that only one suspect is being sought in relation to last week's bomb attacks which left four people dead across the country's south.

The Nation newspaper reported Friday that national police chief Pol Gen. Chakthip Chaijinda said the 17 arrested are political opponents of the junta who were not connected to the bombings, but whose “political movements” had to be restricted.

He insisted that only one arrest warrant was issued in relation to the attacks, that for Ahama Lengha, a resident of the insurgency-plagued majority Malay-Muslim province of Narathiwat.

Lengha is accused of having placed a bomb near Patong beach in the tourist island of Phuket on Aug. 12.

Police had earlier said they had requested an arrest warrant for a suspect they say is part of a network that carried out the attacks, after finding the DNA of a known insurgent on a diffused bomb.

The Nation cited an unnamed source Friday as saying that Lengha was “on the run” across the border in Malaysia, whose prime minister has pledged to help Thai officials find the “criminals” behind the explosions.

Chaijinda nonetheless agreed with the junta’s theory that the bombings were organized by opponents who wanted to destabilize the country after a pro-military constitution was approved in a referendum Aug. 7.

According to The Nation, the 17 other suspects -- two of whom have been released -- revealed upon interrogation that they belong to a movement called the Revolutionary Democracy Party. They have been charged with criminal association.

Confusion over which party was responsible began almost immediately after the bombings, when some Thai junta leaders pointed the finger at their political opponents.

Police, however, prioritized the theory that the attacks were by insurgents operating beyond their traditional powerbases in the majority Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.

In the wake of the bombings, an oil rig worker from Chiang Mai working in the Gulf of Thailand was arrested, under suspicion that he was involved in an arson attack targeting a supermarket in southern Nakhon Sri Thammarat province.

Provincial police chief Gen. Wanchai Ekpornpit said Saturday that police had “clear evidence of his involvement in the arson”.

But when deputy-police chief, Gen. Srivara Ransi Brahmanakul, reviewed the case Wednesday, he blasted the local police officers for having arrested someone without clear evidence and ordered Ekpornpit to revoke the warrant issued against the oil rig worker.

Junta chief-cum-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has insisted that those behind the bombings intended to create “chaos” because “the situation and the economy were being stabilized” after a the junta-backed constitution was approved.

More than 61 percent of voters said "yes" to the constitution, especially in the predominantly Buddhist southern provinces affected by the bombings -- however, "no" votes, abstentions and spoiled ballots prevailed in the deep “Muslim south” affected by the decades-old insurgency.