The yellow-shirted man suspected of planting the deadly bomb at the Erawan shrine last month is believed to have left Malaysia, deputy national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda says.
Pol Gen Chakthip, who is overseeing the probe into the shrine blast on Aug 17 and the Sathon pier bombing the following day, was speaking Wenesday after returning from a trip to Malaysia to follow up on the case.
He said the yellow-shirted suspect has been identified, but refused to name him.
He travelled to Malaysia after police there announced they had arrested three suspects -- two Malaysians and a Pakistani -- for having links to the Bangkok city blasts.
The suspect had entered Thailand more than once with a Chinese passport that stated he was from the Xinjiang region, said Pol Gen Chakthip, adding that police believed he sneaked into Malaysia two or three weeks ago though no record of his exit had been found.
"It is likely that he has now left Malaysia," said Pol Gen Chakthip who will take the helm of the police force after Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang retires at the end of this month.
He said Pol Lt Gen Suchart Teerasawat, a police inspector-general, will travel to Malaysia today to follow up the case with Malaysian authorities.
He said Thai police told their Malaysian counterparts that according to Thai information, the trio were involved in helping bomb cell suspects to flee, but Malaysian authorities had not confirmed this.
The three were, however, definitely involved with a network smuggling people into Malaysia, he said.
Meanwhile, Pol Gen Somyot denied he attributed the bombings to the Thai government's decision to deport 109 Uighur migrants back to China in July.
He insisted the blasts were in retaliation for the government's suppression of human trafficking gangs involved in the long-standing smuggling of Uighurs through Thailand.
On Tuesday, Pol Gen Somyot told reporters that the Erawan bombing and July's attack on the Thai consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, were sparked by the same issue.
Turkish passports seized from the Pool Anant apartment in Nong Chok district on Aug 29 are displayed at the Metropolitan Police Bureau Wednesday. (Photo by Thanarak Khunton)
The consulate was ransacked following outrage after Thailand deported the Uighurs to China.
However, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on the same day denied the motive was related to the Uighurs' deportation.
In response to Turkish authorities' denials that the prime bomb plotter suspect Abudureheman "Ishan" Abudusataer had travelled from Bangladesh and entered Turkey, the police chief said that Turkey would not have evidence of the suspect's arrival if he had sneaked through an unofficial border crossing.
A Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman told reporters it has not received official information from Thai authorities.
"We have not officially received a name and information from the Thai authorities," the spokesman said.
Police and Turkish embassy officials on Wednesday inspected 251 passports seized from the Pool Anant apartment in Nong Chok district on Aug 29.
However, Metropolitan Police Bureau chief Sriwara Rangsipramanakul said Turkish embassy officials have not been able to confirm whether the passports are genuine or fake. The documents had to be taken to Turkey for them to be verified.