Police plan to ask a military court to issue arrest warrants for 17 people, of whom 10 of are already in military custody, suspected of being involved in last week’s multiple arson and bomb attacks in seven provinces, a police source said on Wednesday.
The move came after Maj Gen Wijarn Jodtaeng, the legal chief of the National Council for Peace and Order, and Col Burin Thongprapai, a Judge Advocate-General’s Department officer, filed complaints against the 17 for operating a criminal association known as ang-yee. The charges relate to the attacks last week and were filed at the Crime Suppression Division on Wednesday night. The petitions and other documents were presented as evidence.
The 17 were charged with violating Section 210 of Criminal Code which deals with offences relating to public peace. Ten of them are being detained at the 41st Military Circle in Nakhon Si Thammarat province. They will be taken to the CSD on Friday to answer the charges.
The source said CSD police expected to seek warrants for their arrests from the military court of the 11th Military Circle in Bangkok on Thursday.
More suspects have emerged after investigators found links between last week’s attacks and the May 26, 2013, bombing in Bangkok’s Ramkhamhaeng area, based on the methods of attack and assembly of the bombs. Four men were sentenced to 50 years jail in that incident. Insurgent elements in the South have also been linked to the attacks.
They believe Ahama Leng-ha, a resident of Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district and a suspected separatist who is wanted in connection with several violent incidents in the deep South, was the person who assembled the bombs used in the new attacks. A DNA sample collected from the Phuket blast scene last Wednesday matched that taken from Mr Ahama, for whom an arrest warrant has been issued.