Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkey. Show all posts

Thursday, 17 September 2015

#Bangkok, Shrine bomb suspect 'has left Malaysia'



Turkish officials have refuted claims from Thai police that the two nations were cooperating in the investigation of last month’s bomb attack in Bangkok.
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Turkey’s embassy in Bangkok yesterday denied that Thai police have reached out about a key suspect who reportedly fled to Turkey, saying it has neither been contacted nor received reply to its own inquiries.

“Up to now this Embassy has not been contacted by Thai authorities in this respect, and we do not have information concerning the investigation,” read yesterday’s statement from the embassy.

A spokesman from Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also quoted saying Thailand has ignored requests for information regarding suspects who reportedly fled to Turkey or were Turkish nationals.

“We have not officially received any information about this subject from Thailand," Tanju Bilgic said in a weekly press briefing yesterday in Ankara, Turkey, according to Reuters.

Thai officials have been uncomfortable acknowledging the increasingly international links the investigation has turned up, including a roster of foreign suspects including Turkish and Chinese nationals. Officials had reportedly been instructed to avoid mention of international terrorism or specific groups possibly involved in the attack which killed 20 people, mostly foreign tourists.

It wasn’t until Tuesday that any official credence was given to the theory the attack was linked to an ethnic group in the far west of China and those sympathetic to them in Turkey.

Turkish passports seized from the Pool Anant apartment in Nong Chok district on Aug 29 are displayed at the Metropolitan Police Bureau Wednesday. 
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A day after saying the attack was linked to anger over Thailand’s decision to deport 109 Uighurs under pressure from Beijing, Royal Thai Police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang walked that back today, saying the media “misunderstood” his remarks.

Royal Thai Police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang today walked back statements he made yesterday attributing the attack to anger over Thailand’s deportation of 109 Uighurs under pressure from Beijing. Today he said the media “misunderstood” his remarks.

Police Gen. Somyot said he did not intend to suggest the bombing was revenge for Thailand’s forcible repatriation in July of the Uighurs, but that the attack was a response to recent enforcement efforts against human smuggling operations in the kingdom.

“I said, the bombing at Ratchaprasong Intersection was a consequence of Thai authorities destroying a Uighur human trafficking network, which had been going on for a long time,” he said today. “So they were angry that their business and illegal operations came to an end.”

Yesterday he told the press that “The attack at Ratchaprasong Intersection and the violent incident at Thai Consulate in Turkey stem from the same reason.”

On 9 July, Turkish nationalists stormed the Thai Consulate in Istanbul in protest to the deportation of the Uighur refugees, who had fled China when they were captured in March 2014.  They claimed to be were attempting to flee from alleged persecution in China’s Xinjiang province to Turkey, which is home to a large Uighur diaspora.

Five suspects including one man under arrest have been identified as Turkish nationals. Another suspect in custody and one at large are Chinese nationals from Xinjiang province, the Uighur homeland.

On Monday, the Bangladeshi embassy in Bangkok said the one being sought as a key suspect had flown from Dhaka, Bangladesh to Istanbul, Turkey, on 30 Aug.

Correction: A photo caption in an earlier version of this story misidentified the nature of the raid on a Min Buri apartment. Officers were looking for possible suspects in the bombing but found none.

Source: Khaosod

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Tuesday, 1 September 2015

#Bangkok, Wanted woman 'in Turkey'

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A Thai Muslim woman claiming to be the wanted bomb suspect told reporters by phone she is in Turkey, as police track the two Bangkok bombers to Cambodia.

THE hunt for those behind the Erawan Shrine bomThai woman flew out of Phuket in July; bomb materials found in flat she rented, police say; relative claims she will return to deny any role in blasts.


However, police have been unable to clearly pinpoint the motive for Bangkok's worst bomb attack. They have come up with the theory that the culprits may have been human smugglers angered by the government's crackdown on the illegal trade, a source familiar with the ongoing investigation said yesterday.

Previously, possible suspects included political rivals, organised criminal gangs, Islamic militants, southern insurgents and sympathisers of Uighur refugees.

Four arrest warrants have so far been issued in connection with the two blasts - the male shrine bomber seen wearing a yellow shirt and a man in a blue shirt who dropped an explosive device at Sathorn pier. That device exploded the day after the shrine attack but no one was injured.

Meanwhile, police investigators have found footage from closed-circuit TV cameras near Hua Lamphong Railway Station that shows the shrine bomber receiving a backpack similar to one used in the bombing from a man in a white shirt, another police source said.

Min Buri Provincial Court yesterday granted a police request to issue arrest warrants for Phang Nga resident Wanna Suansan, 26, who is also known by the Muslim name Maisaloh, and a man of an unspecified nationality.

Police said Wanna rented an apartment in Min Buri in eastern Bangkok for the man.

A sketch of the unidentified man, who looks to be a foreigner, was issued along with the arrest warrant.

The wanted woman left Thailand on July 1 from Phuket airport for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, according to a police source. Video footage showed her with a man who looks like the man in the police sketch. However, there is no immigration record of him leaving Thailand.

A search of Wanna's rented room found gunpowder, urea fertiliser and other bomb-making materials, Royal Thai Police spokesman Lt-General Prawut Thavornsiri said.

Police searched her house in Phang Nga yesterday afternoon. A relative of Wanna at the house said she was in Turkey, the country of her husband.

The relative said Wanna had insisted she was not involved with the blasts and would come back soon to turn herself in to police.

But Prawut said: "We are confident that these two people are in the same group of people responsible for the blasts at the Ratchaprasong intersection and the Sathon pier."

He said more arrest warrants would be issued soon but declined elaborate.

The foreigner of unknown nationality arrested on Saturday at an apartment in Nong Chok is still denying involvement in the blasts, a source said. However, substances found on his clothes were similar to what was used in the bombs.

Police will conduct a DNA test in a bid to confirm his link with the blasts, the source added.

The man, who held a fake Turkish passport, is being detained at the 11th Military Circle in Bangkok's Dusit district, where security has been increased. No media are allowed to take photographs or do video recordings at the agency.

Prawut dismissed a report that police were detaining four Palestinians in connection with the investigation. But he could not confirm or deny they were being detained by the military.

The spokesman said police were conducting searches in many locations but declined to discuss the operation in detail. He urged owners of apartment buildings with foreign tenants to prepare copies of CCTV recordings of the tenants for police examination.

National police chief General Somyot Poompanmuang met Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha at Government House yesterday to report on progress in the investigation. The PM told reporters afterwards that the mass media should avoid making wild speculation about the case or they could further complicate the probe.

In the government's newsletter for September 1 (today), General Prayut wrote: "I and all the Cabinet members promise that we will do the best of our ability to prevent such an incident from happening again. And we will find all the perpetrators to be punished in accordance with the law."
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