A Pakistani and two Malaysians have been detained in connection with last month’s bombing of a shrine in Bangkok that killed 20 people, a Malaysian police official said yesterday.
Royal Malaysia Police Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters that the three were detained a few days ago following a tip by Thai authorities. He said one of the Malaysians is a woman.
The Aug. 17 blast at the Erawan Shrine in the Thai capital killed 20 people, including five Malaysians from one family, and injured more than 120. Many of the victims were foreigners, as the shrine is a popular destination for tourists and Thais alike.
ONGOING INVESTIGATION
Khalid did not give details or say where in Malaysia the three were detained, when they are to be formally charged or what the charges would be.
He said Malaysian police would investigate and work with Thai authorities on the detainees.
Thai police say the man who might have actually planted the bomb might have fled across Thailand’s southern border to Malaysia, but Khalid refused to speculate on that.
In Bangkok, Royal Thai Police Commissioner-General Somyot Poompanmoung said he has not received any information from the Malaysian police on the arrest of the three suspects.
Two key suspects are also in custody in Thailand, charged with possession of illegal explosives. One of them was captured from an apartment on the outskirts of Bangkok where police also discovered bomb-making materials.
The other was caught near the border between Thailand and Cambodia, and police said his fingerprints were found on a container with explosive material confiscated from the apartment.
UIGHUR CONNECTION
After weeks of demurring, Thailand has suggested that those behind the blast might have been from a gang involved in smuggling Uighurs from the Chinese region of Xinjiang, while others speculate they might be separatists or Muslim extremists angry that Thailand repatriated more than 100 Uighurs to China in July.
Uighurs complain of oppression by the Chinese government, and some advocate turning Xinjiang into a separate Uighur state.
Thai police say the mastermind of the plot is a 27-year-old ethnic Uighur from China. They said they think the man might have fled to China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing