An expoliceman has been arrested in the March 20 rocket attack on the Defence Ministry.
Police said he was a highprofile suspect found to have been implicated in eight previous bomb attacks throughout Bangkok.
The suspect Bundit Sitthichum confessed he had actually tried to fire the rocket-propelled grenade at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha located not far away but the rocket missed the target as it hit electric wire nearby, said chief of Department of Special Investigation Tharit Pengdit.
Bundit allegedly said a man with ties to a political party paid him Bt500,000 to carry out the attack on the historic and symbolic landmark, Tharit said in a press conference.
The lone RPG round hit power wires and deflected off them before hitting the Defence Ministry which is located opposite the temple. After a police press conference announcing Bundit's arrest, the redshirted leaders spoke at the rally site at Rajprasong intersection that Bundit was paid by the government to lure the public into believing that red shirts were behind the attack.
Police and the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) are jointly handling this RPG attack case and will decide soon whether the latter would take over it, which involved acts of terrorism.
Bundit has also been implicated in other eight bomb attacks before the RPG incident, judging from manners of crimes and explosives used in the eight relevant cases, said deputy police chief Pol General Phanuphong Singhara na Ayutthya.
There were 60 bomb attacks occurring across the country, 46 in Bangkok alone, since the redshirted rally began on March 12, he said.
DSI directorgeneral Tharit said a senior redshirted guard, Chayut Laijaroen, began to cooperate and provided information useful to the investigation. "But it is not deemed a full cooperation or allout confession from him yet," he added.
Acting police chief Pol General Patheep Tanprasert said police could say next two days whether many M79 attacks were carried out using grenades in the same lot which was seized on Wednesday from a man on a motorcycle, and later found owned by Pol Sgt Major Parinya Maneekhote, of Khoo Khot police station, who was arrested on Thursday.
Räknas detta?
