By Max Constant
BANGKOK
Police announced Friday that DNA tests had shown that neither of the two main suspects arrested in relation to the Aug. 17 bombing in central Bangkok were the man in the yellow shirt shown by security cameras at the bomb scene.
The man, caught on CCTV footage leaving a rucksack at the Erawan Shrine where 20 people were killed in the explosion, is strongly believed to be the bomber.
“There is no evidence that he is the yellow-shirted man,” police spokesman Gen. Prawut Thavornsiri told reporters, referring to a man travelling on a Chinese passport with Xinjiang as his birthplace arrested near the Cambodian border on Tuesday.
“However, he is definitely involved in the bombing,” he underlined.
The suspect had admitted during interrogation that he was in the vicinity of the bomb scene at the time of the explosion, while his fingerprints also matched those found on a container holding explosives seized in a Bangkok suburban apartment during a police raid last Saturday.
Police earlier said that the DNA of the second main suspect - arrested during Saturday’s raid - also did not match that of the man caught on CCTV footage.
The DNA was taken from scraps of the rucksack containing the bomb and from a banknote the man used to pay a taxi after the bombing.
Earlier Friday, Thai authorities said that a third man arrested this week is a "key people smuggler", and 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, but reports Friday underlined what is suspected to be his key role.
"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.
"These sources also received information that some of the perpetrators managed to leave the country across the Thai-Malaysian border at Sungai Kolok with the help of Mr. Kamarudeng," added the Post.
Although the 38-year-old man - a Thai Muslim from Narathiwat province - was arrested by the military Tuesday, news of his detention was first reported Thursday.
The Post said that he 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 did not mention the phone call -- police have been tracking suspects by carefully sifting through phone records -- but said that Saho had been arrested in the past for involvement in people smuggling.
They added that he was found Tuesday with "a number of passports and pass documents".
There was no indication as to what country the passports belonged to, or if they were also forgeries.
"The man is a key member of a human trafficking network smuggling Rohingya and Uighur from Myanmar to Thailand," said the sources.
