Thai police yesterday said that two men who were arrested in connection with last month’s deadly Bangkok bombing were the ones who carried out the attack and that authorities have gathered enough evidence to prosecute them.
Authorities are confident that the two men in custody, identified as Adem Karadag and Yusufu Mieraili, are the culprits responsible for the bombing at the Erawan Shrine on Aug. 17 that killed 20 people and injured more than 120, Royal Thai Police Commissioner-General Somyot Poompanmoung said.
Police are seeking at least 15 other people they believe are tied to the case.
Police have said the motive for the attack was revenge by a people-smuggling network against Thai authorities for breaking up their operation.
Police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri announced late on Friday that arrest warrants had been issued for a total of 17 people believed to be linked to the case.
Somyot said that the strength of the evidence had forced the two suspects to confess.
However, many questions remain unanswered about the case. Police have not detailed what action triggered the alleged violent revenge, and Somyot suggested that the people smugglers “might have hired” another group of people to carry out the attack. The names and nationalities of some of the others being sought are still unknown.
Even the two arrested men’s true identities remain uncertain. Adem Karadag was arrested when police raided an apartment in Bangkok on Aug. 29, where they also found bomb-making materials and a large quantity of fake passports, including a bogus Turkish passport carrying the photograph of the suspect and the name Adem Karadag.
His lawyer claims he is Turkish, but that his real name is Bilal Mohammed and that he was only seeking a job in the region. Karadag is the man in a yellow T-shirt who police say footage showed planting the bomb at the shrine.
Yusufu Mieraili was the name on a Chinese passport carried by a suspect arrested on Sept. 1 in eastern Thailand near the Cambodian border.
Police said his fingerprints matched those found on a bottle containing bomb-making material found in a raided apartment.
The passport, verified as real, identified him as being from China’s western Xinjiang region. That fact, and his name, strongly suggested he is a member of China’s Uighur ethnic minority.
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