Malaysian police said the gang gave shelter to the yellow-and blue-shirt bombers at a location two kilometres away from a police station.
Advertisement
Some of the evidence comes from CCTV footage shot in Lumpini Park showing a yellow-shirted man suspected of planting the bomb at the shrine going into a toilet in the park, where he changed his shirt to a grey one.
On Saturday afternoon dozens of local and worldwide media waited at the Erawan shrine in downtown Bangkok where Karadag was due to undergo a re-enactment of his alleged role in the crime – a standard Thai police procedure.
The man in a yellow T-shirt was seen in a close-circuited TV footage leaving a backpack purportedly containing the explosive at the shrine, taking a picture of himself and finally walking off shortly before the blast occurred. But he said he believed the police had evidence to prove so.
“Initial questioning did not indicate that this man is connected to the bombing, but again, it is still early”, added the source.
Mr Karadag, who has also been named as Bilal Mohammed, was arrested in late August in a raid on a flat on the eastern outskirts of Bangkok.
They will face charges of premeditated murder and jointly making bombs that resulted in deaths, injuries and losses of property.
(MENAFN – The Peninsula)Hong Kong actor Simon Yam visit the Erawan shrine wherea bombing on 17 August killed at least 20 people and injured more than hundred in central Bangkok as part of the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s (TAT) campaign to restore tourist confidence.
An additional image from police in Min Buri is said to show the man inside a 7-Eleven at 9:06pm.
Karadag’s lawyer Chuchart Kanphai earlier claimed that his client was not in the country at the time of the attack.
National deputy police chief Noor Rashid Ibrahim said they were detained in the past week in Kuala Lumpur as well as in northeastern Kelantan state.
There has been speculation that the attack might have been done to punish Thailand for forcibly repatriating more than 100 Uighurs to China in July. The duo will go to Hua Lumphong train station where they allegedly met to swap the bomb rucksack.
Advertisement
Somyot referenced this in his comments this evening. “They confess in the interrogation process and retract it in the court, and they will claim that officers coerced their confessions, or that officers assaulted them, as you have seen from many news, which is untrue, because this is no longer the era that police can do something like that”, he said.
