A homemade tube like detonator exploded beside a security box in
front of the residence of Thai Privy Council's Chairman Prem
Tinsulanonda in central Bangkok on Thursday afternoon, injuring two
foreigners and causing minor damage.
The blast occurred at 2:05 PM local time (05:05 GMT) near a
security box outside Prem's house compound in Bang Lamphu district
in Bangkok. A policeman at the scene told Xinhua that the bomb was
laid under a stone chair which was burst into pieces after the
blast.
Some police dynamite experts sampled the metal relics of the
bomb and said it was something like a homemade percussion cap.
"The bomb which blasted today is the same kind of the two bombs
which exploded in Bangkok during the last two months," a
plainclothesman said.
Fung, a shopkeeper whose store is just in front of the blast
scene, said a few stone pieces were burst into her shop.
"I was doing some cleaning in the shop when I heard the huge
sound. It just like an earthquake and some stone pieces flied into
the front-yard of my shop," Fung said. "And then I saw two
foreigners, a man and a woman, sat on the ground beside the
security box of Prem's residence."
Initial investigation identified the injured as a Briton and a
Canadian. A spokesman of Vajira Hospital identified the Briton as
Jeffeny King, 28, who was passing the house at the time of the
blast. He was injured by shrapnel in his left shin.
Three cars were also damaged in the explosion, police said.
Police closed the four-lane road in front of the scene half an
hour after the blast and then some soldiers from Thai Royal Army
marched into the residence.
"Some passers-by witnessed a man in his twenties rode a bike
around the residence for several times and the police are hunting
the suspicious person now," a security man guarding the closed gate
of the residence said.
Another police officer said he believed the blast was related to
recent political chaos in Thailand. He thought the group behind the
blast wanted to make more confusion for the situation because "Prem
plays an important role between the political side and the royal
side."
Prem, a former army commander-in-chief who was prime minister
between 1980 to 1988 and currently Privy Council chairman to Thai
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was in his residence when the bomb
exploded. He said after the blast that he "never knows why to be
the bomb target."
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was on the election
campaign tour in Chanthaburi, said he had not received an official
report on the bomb yet but he believed someone was trying to create
a situation.
He said police would try to find out the masterminds of the bomb
and bring them to justice.
The embattled caretaker prime minister is facing, on one hand, a
strong pressure from anti-Thaksin middle-classed groups, led by the
People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), to force him to step down
following his family's sale of Shin Corporation shares to
Singapore's Temasek Holdings in late January and, on the other
hand, an overwhelmed support by pro-Thaksin groups who are mostly
people of the grassroots level and want him to remain in
office.
(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2006)
