The Criminal Court on Wednesday convicted and imprisoned a Lebanese man with alleged links to Hezbollah militants of illegal possession of bomb-making materials that he was storing in a warehouse just outside Bangkok.
Atris Hussein, who also holds Swedish nationality, was arrested Jan 12, 2012, at Suvarnabhumi airport after a tip-off from Israeli police, who claimed he was going to stage a terrorist attack in Thailand.
After being questioned, Hussein led police to a warehouse with hundreds of boxes containing more than 2.8 tonnes of liquid ammonium nitrate and four tonnes of urea fertiliser, both of which can be used to make explosives.
The court convicted and sentenced Hussein to two years and eight months in prison for illegal possession of the ammonium nitrate, which is a banned substance under the Weapons Act. It did not convict him for possession of the fertiliser, which is not an illegal substance. He will serve only about one more year of the prison sentence, due to time already spent behind bars.
Atris Hussein arrives at the Bangkok Criminal Court Sept 18, 2013, where he was sentenced to prison for illegal possession of bomb-making material (Photo by Pattanapong Hirunard)
After the judgement, the 49-year-old Hussein, his legs in chains, told reporters he was "happy" with the ruling. His lawyer said they plan to appeal.
Hussein has claimed his innocence in the case and denies any links to Hezbollah. He claimed he was probably framed by Israel's Mossad spy agency.
In an interview last year with a Swedish newspaper, Hussein said that he was involved in a business that exported a variety of goods from Thailand to other countries, including Lebanon. The products included fans, copy machine paper and frozen gel packs used for pain relief, he said.
"There is ammonium in these packs. That's all there is to it. We never traded with fertiliser. It must have been placed there by someone, probably Mossad," Hussein told Aftonbladet newspaper.
In its judgement, the court said Hussein's claims "did not hold weight" because he showed no proof of any trading transactions that a normal business would have.
"The defendant was involved in the process of transferring, packing and handling the materials ... so it is considered that he was the owner of the material," the judges said in their ruling.
Hussein said he moved to Sweden in 1989 and became a Swedish citizen five years later. He said he worked in the country as a hairdresser before moving back to Lebanon in 2005.
His arrest in Thailand was linked to warnings by the United States and Israel of a possible terror threat in Bangkok, coming at a time of heightened tension over US and Israeli responses to fears Iran was moving ahead with its nuclear program.
Police witnesses testified that they had received a tip-off from Israeli authorities that Hussein had suspected links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants and was preparing to stage a terrorist attack at a key location in Thailand.
However, police have said Hussein's case was unrelated to a botched bomb plot in Bangkok that was exposed on Feb 14, 2012, shortly after his arrest in January.
In that case, which also wrapped up recently, an accidental explosion blew apart a Bangkok home where a group of Iranians were staying.
A court last month sentenced one of the Iranians to life in prison and his compatriot to 15 years in jail for possession of illegal explosives and other charges for a plot that officials say was aimed at Israeli diplomats in Bangkok.