There are three days left for Somyot Poompunmuang to catch the Erawan Shrine bomber before he is no longer police chief. It would be a terrific, matching bookend to the one he got in his first week on the job, when he solved the Koh Tao murders.
On Thursday, Pol Gen Somyot must hand the reins to his current deputy, Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda. Last week, in something of a replay of the Koh Tao case, the chief said he was certain of the identity of Yellow T-Shirt Guy, and all he needs to nail the terrorist was evidence. Whoops. Correction. He also said he can’t arrest any terrorists because it now is clear that the Aug 17 bomb that killed 14 ethnic Chinese and three Sino-Thais among the 20 dead wasn’t terrorism at all.
Chief Somyot believes Adem Karadag is the bomber. He was the first man arrested, and is named after the first man in the three Abrahamic religions. With retirement coming up this week, the police chief now thinks the CCTV he earlier (and correctly) belittled proves this, because a camera at Lumpini Park tracked Yellow T-Shirt Guy into a public toilet, from which he emerged after a few minutes in a grey T-shirt, and then went to his Nong Chok district apartment to wait for police to raid and arrest him and claim their reward. In the chief’s opinion Mr Karadag (without the wig and glasses) looks like Yellow T-Shirt Guy and the guy in the grey T-shirt. Three guys, one man, to which Uighurs are probably replying, “Yeah, we all look alike to you.”
And Pol Gen Somyot says to disregard his earlier reports that Yellow T-Shirt Guy fled the country by being helped over the Malaysian border by human traffickers. Last week he dismissed Malaysian claims they had arrested four Uighurs and four Malaysians with ties to the Ratchaprasong bombing.
For sheer confusion, nothing matched the reports that Mr Karadag had confessed. At one point on Friday, an English-language newspaper (not the Bangkok Post Sunday) had adjacent headlines on its website that said he had confessed, and that he hadn’t.
Amazingly, it is still not clear what has happened, but it seems to have gone like this.
Mr Karadag, aka Bilal Mohammed, has been under the efficient care of the 11th Army Circle since his arrest. The military interrogated him, then made him available to the police. None of these sessions got much that is useful from the Turk, to the point the regime even allowed him to talk with a lawyer, Choochart Khanphai.
Last week in a sensational exclusive, Mr Choochart told the Bangkok Post Sunday it appeared his new client wasn’t even in Bangkok when the bomb went off, but arrived four days later.
OK, so after the army and national police questioners obtained no useful information from Mr Karadag beyond his presence at suspect apartments — where, by the way, he denied there were any ball bearings and pipes — the Bangkok police under Metropolitan Police Bureau chief Srivara Rangsipramanakul had a go.
It was a miracle! Mr Karadag made a complete confession. He was the Aug 17 bomber. He was Yellow T-Shirt Guy. Newspaper headlines appeared.
Or maybe he didn’t. Pol Gen Somyot said he didn’t confess. But Pol Gen Somyot confessed he “believes” Mr Karadag was the bomber, and the only thing left for “the world’s best police force” to do is find the evidence. More newspaper headlines ensued.
As seen in Pol Gen Somyot’s initial case as chief, confessions mean different things to different people. The two Myanmar men charged with the Koh Tao rape and murders say they told police what they wanted to hear after some extreme torture including the old plastic-bag-over-the-head encouragement.
In both the Koh Tao and terrorism cases, Pol Gen Somyot began by identifying the guilty, and then began accumulating evidence.
For example, as already noted, when Pol Gen Somyot’s men burst into Room 412 of the Pool Anant Apartments on their journey to a three-million baht reward, they found Mr Karadag and a grey T-shirt. And that grey T-shirt looked quite a lot like the one Yellow T-Shirt Guy changed into.
Talk about damning evidence. Who but the bomber would have a grey T-shirt just lying around?
One feels rather confident at this point that Pol Gen Somyot will be able to accumulate clues by Wednesday that will be sufficient to file an accusation that the first man planted the Aug 17 bomb. On Thursday, a new chief takes over, grateful for the work of his predecessor in identifying the Erawan Shrine bomber.