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Pheu Thai Party-list MP Jatuporn Promphan yesterday said the arrest of red-shirt guards, who have been accused of masterminding the bombing at the Bhum Jai Thai (BJT) Party headquarters, was likely a plot to discredit the Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship (DAAD).
The arrests were made unusually quickly and as if police already had the suspects on hand, he said.
Jatuporn said from his inquiry with key red-shirt members in the eastern provinces about the two suspects - Khamphol Khamkhong and Dejphol Phutthajong - he had learned that the duo were not the heads of red-shirt guards as claimed, but voluntary red-shirt guards who applied via a community radio station.
Jatuporn said the DAAD had nothing to do with the bombing on Tuesday and that the bombers' arrests were solely to misinform the general public that the DAAD was behind the incident.
Meanwhile, Bang Khen police yesterday brought the two suspects to the Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court to seek their detention from Sunday to July 7, pending police investigation that would involve interviewing 15 witnesses and getting forensic test results.
Khamphol and Detphol were arrested after being implicated by attacker Anek Singkhunthod, who was injured when the bomb prematurely went off, of preparing the bomb for him and planning the attack.
Police also opposed their release on bail, citing their alleged action was harmful to others, and they might escape and carry out another similar attack. Police also applied for the detention of Anek at Bhumibol Hospital. The court granted the police detention request for all three suspects.
Earlier, Detphol, who claimed to run for an MP election under the defunct Palang Dhamma Party in 1988 but failed, told police interrogation that his group initially planned to attack the Democrat Party headquarters but the security there was beefed up so they shifted to the Bhum Jai Thai headquarters.
He said the attack was just aimed at getting the government's attention. He denied the accusation that the other cooking gas cylinder they had discarded off Soi Ram-dntra 88 in Bang Khen district was to make a bomb targeting the 11th Infantry Regiment.
Bang Khen superintendent of police, Colonel Pattana Petsayanawin, said the two suspects also identified two at-large accomplices by photos as the alleged hirer Warisriya "Ore" Boonsom, 42, and Kobchai "Ai" Boonplod, 41. It is believed that Ore and Ai have now escaped to a neighbouring country.
Later yesterday, police carrying a search warrant, inspected Warisriya's rented four-storey commercial building in Soi Choke Chai 4, as it was implicated as the gang's safehouse where they made the bomb and planned the attack. They found DAAD newspapers and stickers and collected fingerprints to compare with the suspects' to see if they had been there as claimed.