Thai police probe destination of weapons-filled cargo plane

THAI authorities have focused on the task of inspecting 35 tons of weapons seized from a cargo plane loaded in North Korea, as details of the aircraft's past emerged, but its destination remained unknown.

More than 100 security officials are working on a report on the 145 boxes and crates aboard the Ilyushin Il-76, containing explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, surface-to-air missile parts and other armaments, which were removed to a nearby air base while the plane was was impounded when it landed for refueling in Bangkok.

The Associated Press reported that police Colonel Supisarn Bhakdinarinath, head of the investigation, said results were not expected to be made public for several days.

"Our objective is to identify in detail the arms and weapons we found, to determine their type, their source of production, their destructive potential, how dangerous they are to people and the laws that apply" to transporting them, Col Supisarn said.

The five-man air crew - four from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus - were denied bail and ordered held for at least 12 days. Charged with illegal arms possession, they face 10 years in prison but charges and penalties could change in the course of the investigation.

They are held at Bangkok's Klong Prem Central Prison, where Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is also incarcerated, for supplying arms to Colombian FARC rebels, but there is a question of whether that is legal under Thai law.

The US is trying to extradite Bout, who was arrested in March 2008 during a US sting operation and indicted on four terrorism charges in New York, which don't necessarily stick in Thailand where FARC is regarded as a political group, not a terrorist organisation.

Source: www.schednet.com