Two Uighur men today denied all charges against them of being involved in carrying out a deadly bombing at the Erawan shrine in Bangkok last year.
Bilal Mohammed, also known as Adem Karadag, and Yusufu Mieraili, 25, arrived barefoot, handcuffed and in ankle chains, at the military court today, AFP reported.
Mohammed said he was not in Thailand at the time of the Aug. 17 attack, which killed 20 people and wounded 120 more at the shrine, Khaosod English reported.
However he admitted to entering Thailand illegally, saying he had planned to travel to Malaysia and send money home to his family in Turkey.
Mieraili said he wanted to find his own lawyer, rejecting his court-appointed counsel.
“I am an innocent Muslim,” he told the court, Reuters reported. Mieraili asked the court to accelerate proceedings, as he had already spent six months in jail.
The pair are charged with attempted and premeditated murder, possession of illegal weapons and illegal entry over the Aug. 17 attack.
Police said the pair had previously confessed to being involved in the attack.
They believe that Mohammed is the man seen in CCTV footage wearing a yellow T-shirt and placing a backpack at the Erawan shrine moments before the explosion.
But Mohammed’s lawyer, Schoochart Kanpai, has alleged his client had been “tortured to confess” to the crime.
In court today Schoochart repeated the allegations of torture, saying his client was forced to confess after being threatened with murder or deportation to China.
The denials come several months after Schoochart told reporters that Mohammed had in fact admitted to the bombing, acting on the orders of an apparent mastermind — who is still at large.
He has asked the court to look into his client’s allegations of torture in custody.
Six months after the blast mystery still surrounds the motive for the attack, in which the majority of the dead were ethnic Chinese tourists. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack
Thailand’s key tourist industry was rattled by the bombing, which struck the packed shrine at peak hours and raised fears over security.
But normality swiftly returned to Bangkok and the case has almost entirely slipped from the news pages — taking with it the pressure on authorities to arrest further suspects.
Speculation has centred on a link to militants or supporters of the Uighurs, an ethnic group who say they face severe persecution in China, after Thailand forcibly repatriated 109 of the minority in July.
However Thai authorities have rejected the theory that the bomb was a revenge attack for the deportations.
Instead investigators have stuck to the line that it was carried out by a people-smuggling gang angered by a crackdown on its business — a theory many analysts have questioned.
More than a dozen other people — both foreigners and Thais — are wanted over the blast. But the two suspects are the only ones in custody so far.
Both sides will review the evidence against the pair at the next hearing on April 20-22, the judge said.
Story: AFP/ Reuters
