Face to face with a terrorism suspect

In this job you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes that simply means nothing – you make calls and people don’t call you back for example. Yesterday was different, however.

We’ve been closely following the ‘Bangkok bomb plot’ over the last couple of days. It’s both a fascinating story, smothered in a thick layer of international intrigue and one colossal screw-up – particularly if you happen to associate yourself with a group of Iranian would-be bombers.
Thai police think six Iranian nationals spent months planning an assassination attempt on Israel diplomats or government officials – the target may have been the Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who was scheduled to visit the Thai capital last Thursday.

However, a series of unintentional explosions at the gang’s town house-cum-bomb factory blew off the roof and shattered their cover. In the chaos that followed four arrests were made – two men were nabbed in Thailand while the Malaysian authorities stopped another two trying to fly back home.

Not a bad result this for the Thai authorities. The plot exposed, suspects identified, charges laid and no loss of life – although one of the bombers, 28-year-old Saeid Moradi, blew his legs off after he tried to chuck a ‘device’ at the cops.

With the court process beginning to roll, the word went out that Thai police would no longer be speaking to the media. This was a problem for us. We had plenty of unanswered questions – like who are these guys and who were they working for? There wasn’t much point asking the Iranians – a spokesman from Iran’s foreign ministry has already described the whole thing as an ‘Israeli plot’.

Still, we headed to the hospital where Moradi was being treated to see if we could find someone to talk too – and before too long we found ourselves sitting next to a senior doctor. “We’ve never treated anyone with injuries like this before,” he told me; “I’ve seen damage caused by IED’s and RPG’s but this was different. He’s lucky to be alive.” Mr Moradi – who has regained consciousness – may not feel the same way however. With the police beginning their interrogations, the hospital has put him on suicide watch; “the patient has to be protected from himself. So we give him plastic forks to eat with and crayons to write with. We can’t be sure he won’t take his life,” the doctor told me.

We headed over to Bangkok’s Metropolitan Police Headquarters. A group of journalists and a couple camera crews from Thai television were hanging round the entrance – more in hope than expectation I gathered. We trooped up to the 2nd floor however and my cameraman Matt Jasper shot a few pictures of the back of man in shorts and a stripy t-shirt being led through an unmarked door by the cops. Was it the second Iranian in Thai custody we wondered – a 42-year-old called Mohammad Khazaei?

Turned out we were right. Just before lunchtime the police opened up their conference room and invited the media in. Mr Khazaei was already inside, sitting quietly with a couple of well-decorated policemen on either side. He sat very still as the cameras whirled and flashed. He gave little away – his face was emotionless and controlled. His hair was short and neatly trimmed and he looked athletic – the muscles in his arms were well developed. However, there was something unremarkable about him – if you saw him in a crowd, I dare say you’d never remember him.

A policeman spoke up. Mr Khazaei had denied any involvement in the bomb plot he said, matter of factly. He went on to say that Mohammad Kharzaei had admitted “to a few things” – like staying in the house which hosted the bomb-factory.

To my surprise, I would later get a chance to ask the suspect a few questions. The police decided to take Mr Kharzaei on a tour of Bangkok – or more specifically, a trip to the places he visited after the explosions last Tuesday. As the cops led him to the squad cars waiting outside ‘headquarters’, I asked him who we worked for. “Are you Quds Force – Iranian Intelligence – do you work for Hezbollah?”. He looked blankly into my eyes.

After much persuasion, we finally got an interview with the man leading the police investigation, Lt General Winai Thongsong. I asked him who he thought the suspected bombers were. “They are Iranians,” he said. “We have investigated their passports and they are genuine.” Beyond that however, it appears Lt General Thongsong and his colleagues are struggling. “Who do they work for,” for I asked? He shrugged his shoulders and said: “Well, we don’t have any evidence on that. According to our intelligence sources, [the six suspects] don’t belong to any international terrorist group – they don’t register on our lists.”

So it seems these ‘clean-skins’ don’t have much of a past – disowned by the Iranian government and unknown everywhere else. But the Lt General said it wasn’t quite like that: staff from Iranian Embassy in Bangkok have been “taking care of Mr Moradi and Mr Khazaei,” he said.

There you have it then – we started off the day with little but wishful thinking to propel us along and ended speaking to the lead investigator and up questioning a chief suspect. Shame he didn’t answer my questions. We may get some answers as the days tick by however.  Mohammad Khazaei and Saeid Moradi aren’t going anywhere in a hurry – and they’ll be joined in the cells by two other suspects in a few weeks’ time.

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