Police tracing origin of video threatening Thaksin

BANGKOK, July 29 (TNA) - Concerned security authorities have reiterated that a video clip showing Al-Qaeda militant members threatening the life of fugitive, ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is dubious and they have been detecting the origin source of the video clip and those who have involved in the clip. Police Major General Pisit Pao-in, chief of the Royal Thai Police's Technology Crime Suppression Division, told journalists that police expect to have a clearer picture by July 29 on who or which group is behind the video clip. Police Major General Pisit said that Thai National Police Chief Police General Adul Saengsingkaew has ordered senior police officers to attend an urgent meeting on Monday afternoon to discuss the video clip threatening Thaksin’s life. Both Deputy Prime Minister Police General Pracha Promnog, who is responsible for national security,and National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Lieutenant General Paradorn Pattanathabutr have agreed that the men showing on the video were not genuine Al-Qaeda members, but were those who wanted to create unrest in Thailand. Police General Pracha acknowledged that Thai police have already learned who are behind the plot and they are gathering more evidence before making the arrest. Lieutenant General Paradorn opined that the men in the video “looked like Arabs and could speak Arabian”, but they are not the real Al-Qaeda members. Their purpose appears to create chaos in Thailand. The youtube video clip emerged last Friday showing three men who claimed to be members of the Al-Qaeda reading a statement threatening Thaksin’s life in an attempt to take a revenge against him for his then government in taking action on the so-called Krue Se Mosque incident on April 28, 2004, when all 32 Muslim militants hid inside the mosque in Narathiwat province in the violence-plagued Thai far South were killed by state security officers. Accused of corruption and abuse of power, Thaksin was ousted from power in a bloodless military intervention in September 2006 and he has been living in self-imposed exile overseas. (TNA)