But, “authorities don’t know whether the man is still in the country”. Police have not said how they reached the conclusion that he is a foreigner.
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An arrest warrant has been issued for the man, who is seen in the CCTV footage above.
National chief of police Somyot Poompanmoung said “he didn’t do it alone for sure – it’s a network”.
London law student Vivian Chan, 19, who had been travelling with friends in Thailand, was among the victims of the Erawan Shrine bombing, which has been called the worst attack in Thai history.
“We believe there must be people helping him, Thai people“, Somyot told reporters, referring to the prime suspect.
Pol Lt Gen Prawut said there could be accomplices to the carnage on Monday night that killed 20 people and injured 125 others.
“If it had been the case, the Uighur group would have claimed responsibility by now”, he said. China said six of its nationals, including two from Hong Kong, had been confirmed among the dead.
The shrine, situated at a bustling intersection near a large shopping mall, is a big draw for tourists.
One visitor, Tommy Goh, had something extra to be thankful for. Otherwise, he would have been at the shrine around the time of the explosion. I mean we could have been at that shrine as far as I’m concerned.
While much of the site has been repaired, the Hindu deities still show traces of the carnage.
Twisted iron railings were the only immediate sign of the blast point, which police believe was caused by a bomb made up of 3kg of high explosives.
Police also believe that a second incident on Tuesday, in which a pipe bomb was thrown from a bridge onto a ferry pier used by tourists, may be related. “It is quite clear that he is the perpetrator in this case”, Prawut told local television station Channel 3, adding that police was also trying to track down the motorcycle taxi driver.
BANGKOK (AP) – A police manhunt was underway Wednesday for an “unidentified foreign man” shown in a security video leaving a backpack at a popular Bangkok shrine just minutes before a bomb exploded there.
In the video he calmly places the backpack underneath a bench and then walks away clutching a blue plastic bag and what looks like a smartphone. He told CNN that the man was acting normal but “spoke an unfamiliar language on his cell phone”.
The blast occured several minutes later.
The BBC reports that neither the suspects nor their motives have been identified.
Police are offering a 1m baht (£17,935) reward for anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest of the suspect. Two other men in the footage – one wearing red, the other white – are also being treated as suspects.
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The explosion is unprecedented in Thailand.
