Two bomb suspects escape to Cambodia: police

SA KAEO, June 27 (TNA) -- Two suspects in last week’s bomb attack at the head office of Bhumjaithai Party, a major partner in the coalition government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, have fled to Cambodia, a senior Thai immigration police officer said Sunday.

Pol Lt-Col Benjapol Rodsawas, deputy immigration police chief in the Thai border province of Sa Kaeo, said 42-year-old Varisriya Boonsom, nicknamed Oor, and 41-year-old Korbchai Boonplod, nicknamed Ai, left the country separately last Wednesday, one day after the bombing incident outside the Bhumjaithai Party headquarters on Phaholyothin Road in Bangkok.

Both of them left for Cambodia via the Thai border district of Aranyaprathet, said Col Benjapol.

The Thai Criminal Court last Friday issued arrest warrants for four more suspects, including Mrs Varissriya and Mr Korbchai, alleged to be involved in the bombing incident.

Police allege they planned the attack together.

To date, police have detained three suspects, including Anek Singkhuntod who was seriously wounded in the rambutan pushcart explosion near the Party headquarters. He is being treated in hospital.

As police continue their investigation, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Sunday he had ordered police to find the culprits.

Mr Abhisit said there are still some elements who want to create disturbances in the country while his government is giving an effort to prevent them.

“In practice, it [prevention] cannot be covered 100 per cent but the government will try its best,” Mr Abhisit said.

Thepthai Senpong, spokesman of ruling Democrat Party leader Abhisit, said his party had received intelligence that the party could be the next bombing target.

Democrat Party headquarters was earlier fired on by an assailant using an M79 grenade launcher.

Mr Thepthai said the prime minister in his capacity as the party leader had instructed the authorities to be on alert as another attack could hit the party.

Trial Wraps Up for Bomb Plot Suspects

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
15 December 2009

Five men accused of planting bombs outside key government buildings earlier this year were back in court Tuesday, with defense arguing all charges should be dropped against them.

A defense lawyer told the court the men belong to a political movement called the Cambodian United Front, but there is no evidence linking them to a militant organization, called the Tiger Head.

Prosecutors say the Tiger Head was the military component of a movement assembled to commit acts of terror.

The five suspects are Som Ek, 49; Loek Bun Nhien, 48; Hy Savoeung, 49; Poa Vannara, 59; and Chea Kimyan, 45.

“All five were involved with the [Tiger Head] movement to establish armed forces and to plant bombs to make unrest and to oppose the government,” Phnom Penh Municipal Court prosecutor Hoeung Bunchea told the court Tuesday.

The men are also accused of detonating a small bomb near the Vietnamese Friendship Monument in 2007, near what was then the National Assembly building.

They were arrested shortly after officials found explosive devices outside the Ministry of Defense and the government-run TV3 station on Jan. 2 this year.

Som Ek, the accused ringleader of the group, told the court Tuesday he was “completely responsible” for establishing the Cambodian United Front, but he said it was meant as a “political party” aimed at defeating the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in the 2012 national election.

He conceded that the United Front included a plan for a military wing, called the Tiger Head, but he denied the militant wing existed now or was involved in terrorist plots.

Tuesday’s hearing concluded three days of trial spread over several weeks. A decision is expected Dec. 30. If found guilty, the men face jail sentences from 20 years to life.

Fifth suspect arrested in link with foiled bomb plot in Phnom Penh

February 02, 2009
Xinhua

A fifth suspect was arrested last week in Banteay Meanchey province and charged in connection with the foiled bomb plot on Jan. 2 in Phnom Penh, national media said on Monday.

Fifty-seven-year-old vendor Pov Sovannara "is the fifth person arrested in link with the Tiger Head Movement, which planted explosives in the city on Jan. 2," National Police spokesman Kieth Chanthearith was quoted by English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily as saying.

Pov Sovannara was charged on Sunday with "conscripting and training terrorist forces and planting explosives in public places" and more suspects will be named later, according to Kieth Chanthearith.

In January, four other Tiger Head Movement members were arrested for the same plot and also faced the same charges.

Three small explosive devices were found near the Defense Ministry and the state-run Television Station No. 3 and later safely detonated by de-mining experts on Jan. 2. The government claimed that the anti-government Tiger Head Movement was behind the foiled plot.

Bomb plot mastermind faces court today: police

Police display a photograph of the alleged mastermind of the bomb plot that targeted the Ministry of Defence. (Photo by: KEM SOVANNARA)

Monday, 12 January 2009
Written by Sam Rith
The Phnom Penh Post

Authorities say the man who allegedly planned a bombing attempt this month was also behind a 2007 bomb attack on the Vietnamese Friendship Monument

FOUR suspects being held in connection with bombs discovered January 2 that appeared to target the Defence Ministry and state television station TV3 will appear before the Phnom Penh Municipal Court today, two days after police announced that the alleged mastermind had confessed to his involvement in the foiled attack.

Speaking at a press conference Saturday, Sok Phal, deputy director general of the National Police, said suspect Som Ek had confessed to masterminding the January 2 plot as well as a foiled attempt to bomb the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument on July 29, 2007.

Som Ek, 44, who has dual Thai-Cambodian citizenship, was born in Kampong Cham's Koh Sotin district and was formerly involved in the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, Sok Phal said. He worked for the Defence Ministry in 1993 and later went to study in the United States for 18 months, where he learned to make explosives. He was jailed for three months in 2003 for forging Defence Ministry documents, he added.

Som Ek was arrested in connection with the January 2 plot on Wednesday in Banteay Meanchey's O'Chrov district.

Sok Phal said Som Ek ordered the bombings in an attempt to get foreign support and funding for the Khmer National Unity Front (KNUF), also known as the Tiger Liberation Movement, which uses the tiger head as its symbol. Som Ek allegedly took pictures of members of the group planning and carrying out the attacks to send to potential donors based outside the country.

Sok Phal compared the KNUF to the Cambodian Freedom Fighters organisation in that both groups receive support from outside donors, but he declined to elaborate on that comparison. He said police were looking to arrest people both inside and outside Cambodia who are allegedly involved with the KNUF.

Police arrested five people in 2007 in connection with the foiled attack on the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument, Sok Phal said, noting that those suspects have been detained in Prey Sar prison. He said police discovered bomb-making materials and a remote-controlled helicopter that could transport a bomb. He said Som Ek claimed in his confession to ordering five people to place bombs in front of the monument.