Thailand said Thursday it would seek Interpol help in hunting a foreign man believed to have carried out a devastating Bangkok shrine bombing, with police unsure if he had fled the country.
An arrest warrant was issued for the unnamed bespectacled suspect, who was filmed on security footage placing a backpack at the shrine before Monday’s blast that tore through the popular tourist site.
The attack on the Erawan shrine killed 20 people, mostly Asian visitors, leaving residents of the Thai capital fearful of another attack and hammering the nation’s vital tourism sector. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which has no precedent in Bangkok.
Police have said the foreigner and potentially at least two other men were part of a network, but have so far revealed few other strong leads and authorities moved Thursday for outside assistance.
“We will seek help from Interpol today (Thursday),” Major General Apichart Suriboonya, the head of Thailand’s Interpol unit, told AFP. “We have to use them… if any country has information on the suspect they can send it to us.”
A so-called Interpol ‘Blue Notice’ asks its global membership to collect additional information on a suspect.
Police released a sketch of him on Wednesday showing him in glasses and with dark hair, describing him as tall and with fair skin but with generally ambiguous features that made it hard to determine his ethnicity.
But police said Thursday they were unsure of his whereabouts.