Authority: Two southern bombing suspects are real culprits

BANGKOK, April 6 (TNA) - Thai Defence Minister Air Chief Marshal Sukumpol Suwanatat confirmed on Friday that two arrested bombing suspects are real culprits and their accounts will lead to many more suspects. Air Chief Marshal Sukumpol, who is visiting the Thai far South, was briefed on the security situation in the region and progress in official investigations into recent bombings in Yala Province and met the chief of the 4th Army Area Command, the Yala governor and the secretary-general of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC). The minister confirmed thereafter that local authorities had arrested two bombing suspects and were questioning them to reach more wrongdoers, saying that the local authorities would then decide whether the enforcement of curfew in affected areas was necessary. Regarding another related car bomb probe at the Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel in Hat Yai of Songkhla Province, also on March 31, the defence minister said that police are verifying whether two male suspects, identified as Seri Waemamu and Ruslan Baima, were the same persons as two people caught on surveillance cameras at the bombing scene, and that both are key figures of an insurgency group of Jehma Wani, believed to be the mastermind of the hotel bombing based on evidence, and arrest warrants have, therefore, been issued against them. The defence minister said that he has ordered the deployment of some 150 special operational officers to support local police, soldiers and volunteers to maintain order in the Thai deep South during the upcoming traditional Thai New Year or Songkran Festival. (TNA)