Skip to footer

Thailand seeks arrest of 12th suspect in Bangkok bombing

Thai authorities on Saturday issued an arrest warrant for Abudusataer Abudureheman, 27-year-old ethnic Uighur from China, in connection with last month's bombing at a Bangkok landmark that killed 20 people.

|
Sakchai Lalit/AP
Thailand’s Anti-Money Laundering Office Secretary General Seehanart Prayoonrat speaks as he displays a chart of money flows of people suspected of links to the Aug. 17 bombing in the Thai capital Bangkok that killed 20 people during a press conference in Bangkok Friday, Sept. 11, 2015.
  • By Staff Associated Press

| BANGKOK

Thai authorities on Saturday issued an arrest warrant for a 12th suspect in connection with last month's bombing at a Bangkok landmark that killed 20 people, identifying him as a 27-year-old ethnic Uighur from China.

Police identified the suspect from the name that is in his passport, Abudusataer Abudureheman , but said he also uses the name "Ishan."

Although Saturday's police handout on the suspect identified him as Uighur, police later asked the media not to use the term. It is the first time a suspect has officially been identified that way.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has suggested those behind the Aug. 17 bombing may have been from a gang involved in smuggling Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs) from the Chinese region of Xinjiang, while others speculate they may be separatists or Islamist 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.

Police spokesman Lt. Gen. Prawut Thavornsiri said the charge against the latest suspect is illegal possession of military hardware, based upon finding that he was present in an apartment where such materials were discovered in a police raid.

Police and other Thai authorities have acknowledged that most of the suspects are believed to be foreigners — from China and Turkey, which hosts a large number of Uighurs — but have so far declined to identify the bombing as an act of international terrorism, out of apparent fear that it will hurt the country's huge tourism industry.

Thai officials said Friday that they think Ishan may have fled to China, and have asked the authorities there to trace him. But officials from Bangladesh said that while he went there shortly before the blast, he then left Bangladesh on Aug. 30 and was supposed to transit in Delhi on his way to China but never got to his final destination.

Two suspects have been arrested in connection with the bombing at the popular Erawan Shrine, one with a fake Turkish passport and the other with a Chinese passport that, as in Ishan's case, describes him as coming from Xinjiang with a name that would typically belong to a Uighur.

Thai officials say that two suspects, including the man they believe may have actually planted the bomb, may have fled across Thailand's southern border to Malaysia.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Thailand seeks arrest of 12th suspect in Bangkok bombing
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2015/0912/Thailand-seeks-arrest-of-12th-suspect-in-Bangkok-bombing
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe