Police Release Two Bangkok Blast Suspects

RIA Novosti

13:49 28/02/2012 BANGKOK, February 28 (RIA Novosti) - Police in Thailand have released a married Iranian couple detained for suspected involvement in bombings in Bangkok earlier this month, The Nation said on Tuesday.

A blast occurred in the afternoon of February 14 in the east of Bangkok in a two-story residential building. Three Iranian citizens who were renting the house tried to escape after the incident. Two of them were detained in Thailand and one in Malaysia.

Three more suspects - two men and a woman - were detained on Sunday. A married couple, Rahimi Radiraj and Mahbub Tasbehi, were released late on Monday after questioning revealed they had no links to the blasts.

The third suspect detained on Sunday, 33-year-old Madani Seyed Mehrded, was detained for overstaying his two-month tourist visa and remains in custody.

According to Thai media reports, the man regularly communicated by phone with two main suspects in the blast, including on the day when the bomb went off. Thai police also believe Mehrded was seen in front of the building housing the Israeli embassy on the day of the bombing.

Thai authorities said they were holding two suspects; Mohammad Hazaei was arrested on February 14 at Bangkok’s International Airport as he tried to board a plane to Malaysia and Saeid Moradi, whose legs were blown off by his own bomb.

Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, 31, was arrested the next day by Malaysian authorities; Thailand has called for his extradition.

A fourth suspect, an Iranian woman, is accused of renting the house where the first device exploded. She left the country before February 14 and has already returned to Iran.

Thai police are also searching for the fifth suspect, a 52-year-old Iranian passport holder Nikkahfard Javad who might have given bomb-making training to the other suspects.

The blasts in the Thai capital came a day after an Israeli diplomat’s car exploded in New Delhi, injuring two people, and Georgian security services said they defused a bomb at the Israeli Embassy in Tbilisi.

Israel has accused Iran of plotting the three attacks, but Tehran denied the accusations.

Thai police say they have evidence that Iranian nationals were preparing bomb attacks in the capital, possibly against Israeli diplomats, but the country’s police chiefs officially said they found no connection between the blast and the failed attacks on Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia. Police also failed to prove the suspects’ connection to terrorist groups.