Two Chinese are to go on trial this week for their alleged roles in a deadly bombing at a Bangkok shrine one year ago, an attack whose motive remains clouded in mystery following a murky and at times surreal investigation.
The trial, which starts tomorrow, is being held at a military court in Bangkok and is expected to last more than a year.
The bombing was the worst assault of its kind in Thailand’s recent history.
PHOTO: EPA
However, one year later more than a dozen key suspects named during the investigation remain at large, while analysts say Thai authorities have yet to offer a convincing motive.
The powerful bomb packed with ball bearings killed 20 people and wounded more than 100 when it ripped through Erawan Shrine in the heart of Bangkok’s shopping district on Aug. 17, last year.
The Hindu shrine is popular among ethnic Chinese visitors, who made up a majority of the dead with five from Malaysia, five from China and two from Hong Kong.
Two members of China’s Muslim minority Uighur population — Yusufu Mieraili and Bilal Mohammed — have been charged with involvement.
Analysts have largely coalesced around the theory that the bombing was in revenge for the Thai military junta’s forcible return of 109 Uighurs to China weeks earlier.
However, Thai authorities have said the two incidents are unrelated and insist the bombing was carried out by a people smuggling gang angered by recent policing successes against human trafficking.
The Uighur minority say they face cultural and religious repression in their homeland of Xinjiang in northwest China, and many are believed to have fled the restive region in recent years.
The junta’s deportations sparked international condemnation and violent protests outside Thailand’s diplomatic missions in Turkey, which has given refuge to many of the Turkic-speaking group.
Throughout the investigation Thai police and military officials sent out conflicting and at times contradictory messages.
Junta officials initially pointed the finger at domestic critics of their rule.
Then after investigators arrested the two Uighur suspects, they refused to confirm their Chinese nationality for more than a week.
Thai authorities have also refused to call the assault a terrorist attack despite the mass civilian casualties.
Police eventually outlined a group of about 15 suspects, including Chinese Uighur, Turkish and Thai nationals, some of whom had either fled or allegedly organized the attack out of Turkey.
However, none of those people is in the dock and there has been no publicly announced attempt to seek any extraditions from Turkey.
Thai police drew further attention when the force’s then-chief — who has since gone on to become head of Thailand’s soccer federation — handed his officers a US$80,000 reward that had been open to the public.
The investigation wound down shortly afterward.
Thai citizen Kanya Mayoon, 36, lost her sister Prani Srisuwa in the bombing.
“It seemed like they just wanted to close the case quickly,” she told reporters, adding that the attack had robbed her family of their main breadwinner.
“I just want the real masterminds to be arrested and punished,” she said.
Prosecutors accuse Mohammed of placing the bomb inside a backpack at the shrine and say Mieraili was involved in transporting the device. Both deny the charges.
In a statement released through his lawyer, Mohammed — also known as Adem Karadag — said he was an illegal migrant trying to make his way to Malaysia to find work when police raided the Bangkok flat he was staying in.
In preliminary hearings a sobbing Mohammed accused his Thai captors of beating him and denying him halal food in prison.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was