Bangkok blast: Thai police say second detainee could be chief suspect

Thai police have now detained another foreigner who they said resembles the yellow-shirted guy on the CCTV footage of the Bangkok bombing. The explosion that rocked Central Bangkok left as many as 27 tourists dead and more than 100 injured on Aug 17.

Thailand Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha confirmed the news on Tuesday. "We have arrested one more, he is not a Thai," Mr Prayuth said. However, he declined to elaborate on the matter.

Thai government believes the blast at the Bangkok Hindu Erawan Shrine was a severe blow to the ailing economy and the tourism industry and has also put domestic safety in jeopardy. Among those dead, 14 of them were reported to be foreigners and most of the injured were tourists from China and Taiwan.

The second man was arrested from an area in the Sa Kaeo province, on the border of Cambodia east of Bangkok. He was immediately transferred to Bangkok for investigation.

The news of the second arrest came just a few days after the Thai forces arrested a 28-year-old foreigner in weekend raids in the Nong Chok district of Bangkok and found several fake Turkish passports and bomb-making explosives after expanding their raid in his apartment block.

However, his nationality remains unconfirmed.

As the investigation continues, police have accused the Thai government of poor maintenance over broken security cameras, which have prevented police from smooth investigation. On the other hand, police have been also criticised for not conducting the investigation properly as they have been able to find only a few clues regarding the suspects behind the blast. Police said they had transferred 22 officers from their posts for negligence.

Among the 22 officers transferred, six of them were immigration officers from Sa Kaeo, while the others worked in the Bangkok districts where they launched weekend’s raids. Thai police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang said the transfer was necessary as the officers failed to stop foreigners from entering Sa Kaeo province in Thailand illegally.

He confirmed that it was his decision upon which the transfer was done. "I think that when a foreigner is able to illegally enter Thailand without proper scrutiny... I think those officers should be transferred,” the Reuters quoted Pumpanmuang as saying. Thai police have also issued arrest warrants for a 26-year-old Thai woman named Wanna Suansuant and a 46-year-old foreign man on Monday. Pumpanmuang said the woman has come forward to meet the authorities but shared no details.

According to the ABC, Thai police have included international Islamic militants, members of Thailand's southern Malay-Muslim insurgency and China's ethnic Uighur minority as potential groups that could be behind the attack.

They have also interrogated three Uighur Muslims who were suspected to be in connection with the Bangkok bombing. Police forces said they were not ruling out any possibility about who could be behind the blast.

Back in July, Thailand drew international condemnation when it forcibly repatriated at least 100 Uighurs to China.

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