Thai device defused as bomber trail goes cold

BANGKOK: Thai police found and defused a bomb yesterday, a week after an explosion killed 20 people in the country’s worst-ever bomb attack. It wasn’t clear if the device found at a Bangkok construction site had anything to do with the earlier blast.

The discovery of the bomb came after police said the trail had gone cold in the hunt for those responsible for the August 17 attack on Bangkok’s most famous shrine, and they were unsure if the main suspect was still in the country.

“We received reports this afternoon of a bomb in Sukhumvit 81,” Kamthorn Aucharoen, commander of the police’s explosive ordnance team, said, referring to a road off of one of Bangkok’s main thoroughfares.

Police could not immediately confirm if the device was linked to the attack last Monday, and a second explosion at a pier on Bangkok’s river last Tuesday, which caused no casualties.

The main evidence police have for last week’s attacks is security camera footage. Some of the footage, from the Erawan shrine to a Hindu deity popular with Asian tourists, shows the suspected bomber slipping off a backpack and walking away.

The young man in a yellow Tshirt and dark hair was also caught on closed-circuit television cameras leaving the scene on the back of a motorcycle taxi. But after that, there was very little, police said.

“In terms of the CCTV cameras, some don’t capture images properly and some were damaged, which is a waste of time for police piecing together where the suspect went,” national police chief Somyot Poompanmuang told reporters.

“We don’t know if the suspect is still in Thailand but I have to assume he still is because we’ve got no information that he left.”

The government said the attack aimed at undermining the economy by hurting tourism. – Reuters