econd warrant seeks Asian in pier explosion
Bangkok Post and Agencies
The Southern Bangkok Criminal Court approved an arrest warrant Thursday for an Asian man for dropping a plastic bag with an explosive device inside from the footbridge across Sathon canal on Aug 17, which detonated in the water the next day.
"Today the Southern Bangkok Criminal Court approved an arrest warrant against a man of unknown nationality" over the second blast based on CCTV footage, national police spokesman Prawut Thawornsiri said in a statement released late Thursday.
The man has been charged with "illegal possession of an explosive device, illegally detonating a bomb and premeditated attempted murder", Pol Lt Gen Prawut said.
Police have not definitively linked the two blasts. "We have not yet concluded whether the two blasts are linked to each other," Pol Lt Gen Prawut said when asked whether the second blast was related to the fatal attack at the Erawan.
He said he believed it was "likely" that two different men carried out the shrine and canal blasts.
Thursday's second warrant describes the suspect in the blue shirt as an Asian male, aged 25 to 30, 170 centimetres tall, with yellow-white skin, thick eyebrows, a high-bridged nose, and thick hair.
The arrest warrant for the primary suspect – the man in the yellow T-shirt – describes him as a foreign man with shaggy hair and thick-rimmed glasses.
Blurry CCTV footage shows the man in the blue t-shirt carrying something heavy in a plastic bag as he approaches approaches Meaning: to move closer to someone or something Thai Translation: เข้าใกล้
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the Sathon ferry pier. In the video, he goes to the side of a footbridge, places the bag down and then uses his mobile phone.
Around a minute later he pushes the bag into the canal with his foot, kicking up a visible splash of water.
The following day – shortly after 1pm on Tuesday – an explosion went off in the canal at the same spot.