BANGKOK: Two Iranian men were sentenced to between 15 years and life Thursday for their parts in a botched bomb plot last year in Bangkok that ended with one of them having his legs blown off.
The pair, who had denied the charges, were among five Iranians suspected of involvement in blasts that Israel has linked to a 2012 spate of attacks on its diplomats across the world.
Saeid Moradi, 29, who lost his limbs as he hurled an explosive device at police in the Thai capital, was found guilty on charges including attempted murder and handed a life term by the Bangkok Southern Criminal court.
A judge said the court found him “guilty of carrying explosives in public, using explosives to attempt to kill officials and using explosives which caused the destruction of property.”
“Because attempted murder displays serious intent the court sentenced him to life in prison,” he added.
A second defendant, Mohammad Khazaei, 43, was given a 15-year jail term for possession of explosives.
The blasts on Feb. 14 last year occurred a day after bombs attacks on Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia.
A huge explosion tore the roof off a house in suburban Bangkok when bombs detonated inside, apparently accidentally.
Moradi tried to “escape by carrying two bombs with him... throwing the first to stop people following... throwing the second when police tried to stop and arrest him,” the judge said as he sentenced the pair Thursday, adding that an expert witness said five C-4 explosives had been hidden in radios in the house.
Prosecutors said Moradi hurled one of the bombs at a taxi, then threw the second at two police officers as they approached him on the street, but it instead detonated near him.
The court heard that Khazaei ran out of the house after the first explosion and headed to the airport where police arrested him at the boarding gate.
A third man is thought to have fled to Malaysia, where he is in custody and fighting extradition to Thailand. Two other suspects are believed to have returned to Iran.
Israel has accused Tehran of waging a terror campaign over the Bangkok bomb plot.
“This sentence proves once again that Iran is engaged and in proliferation of terror all around the world,” Israeli ambassador Simon Roded told reporters after attending the court hearing.
He thanked the Thai government for its response to the blasts.
“I hope that other countries will join Thailand in fighting this terror and bringing terrorists to justice,” said the diplomat, who was flanked by bodyguards as he watched proceedings.
Moradi, who appeared in court in a wheelchair, had argued in his defense that he accidentally found bombs in the Bangkok property and was trying to dispose of them safely when they detonated.
The court also found him guilty of possession of explosives.
The pair, who arrived at court in prison clothes, were additionally handed financial penalties over the incident, including two million baht ($62,000) compensation payment for the damage to the Bangkok house.
They appeared subdued as they heard the sentencing.
Defense lawyer Kittipong Kiattanapoom said his clients had not yet indicated whether they would appeal.
“They will initially serve their sentences in Thailand, but Thailand and Iran have a prisoner exchange treaty so they could seek to serve their remaining terms in their homeland after a period of time,” he said.
Last year Israel said it was facing a wave of Iran-sponsored terror around the world.
On February 13, 2012, an assailant on a motorbike attached a magnetic bomb to an Israeli embassy car near the Indian prime minister’s residence in New Delhi.
A female Israeli diplomat, who was also the wife of the defense attache at the embassy, was badly wounded in the explosion. Her driver and two passengers were also hurt.
On the same day police defused an explosive fixed to another embassy vehicle in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
Thai court jails Iran pair over botched Bangkok bomb plot
Thai court jails Iran pair over botched Bangkok bomb plot
Russia slams Western peacekeeping plan for Ukraine
- “The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kyiv regime together form a genuine ‘axis of war’,” Zakharova
- She called the plans drafted by Kyiv’s allies “dangerous” and “destructive“
MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday slammed a plan for European peacekeepers to be deployed to Ukraine as “dangerous” and dubbed Kyiv and its allies an “axis of war,” dousing hopes the plan could be a step toward ending the almost four-year-war.
US President Donald Trump has been pushing the warring sides to strike a deal to halt the conflict, running shuttle diplomacy between Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a bid to get an agreement across the line.
An initial 28-point plan which largely adhered to Moscow’s demands was criticized by Kyiv and Europe, and now Russia has slammed the attempts to beef-up protections for Ukraine should an elusive deal be reached.
Ukraine’s allies said they had agreed key security guarantees for Kyiv at a summit in Paris earlier this week, including a peacekeeping force.
But in its first comments since the summit, Moscow said the statements were far away from anything the Kremlin could accept to end its assault.
“The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kyiv regime together form a genuine ‘axis of war’,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.
She called the plans drafted by Kyiv’s allies “dangerous” and “destructive.”
The remarks come as Russian strikes plunged hundreds of thousands in Ukraine into darkness, leaving families without heat in below-freezing temperatures — attacks that Zelensky said showed Russia was still set on war.
- ‘Legitimate military targets’ -
European leaders and US envoys announced earlier this week that post-war guarantees for Ukraine would include a US-led monitoring mechanism and a European multinational force to be deployed when the fighting stops.
But Moscow has repeatedly warned that it would not accept any NATO members sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.
“All such units and facilities will be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces,” Zakharova said Thursday, repeating a threat previously uttered by Putin.
Zelensky also said Thursday that a bilateral agreement between Kyiv and Washington for US security guarantees was “essentially ready for finalization at the highest level with the President of the United States” following talks between envoys in Paris this week.
Kyiv says legally-binding assurances that its allies would come to its defense are essential to convince Russia not to re-attack if a ceasefire is reached.
But specific details on the guarantees, the European force, and how it would engage have not been made public.
Zelensky said earlier this week he was yet to receive an “unequivocal” answer of what they would do if Russia does attack again after a deal.
Zelensky has also said that the most difficult questions in any settlement — territorial control of the eastern Donbas region and the fate of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — were still unresolved.
- Russian strikes cut heating -
Ukraine was meanwhile scrambling to restore heating and water to hundreds of thousands of households after a new barrage targeted energy facilities in its Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
“This is truly a national level emergency,” Borys Filatov, mayor of Dnipropetrovsk’s capital Dnipro, said on Telegram.
He announced power was “gradually returning to the hospitals” after the blackouts forced them to run on generators. The city authorities also extended school holidays for children.
About 600,000 households in the region remained cut off from power in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian energy company DTEK said.
In a post on social media, Zelensky said the attacks “clearly don’t indicate that Moscow is reconsidering its priorities.”
In addition to the unrelenting pummelling of Dnipropetrovsk, Russia pressed on with its ground assault on the region, claiming to have taken another village there.
It is not one of the five Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed.
