UPDATE - Trial of suspects in Bangkok bombing again postponed

UPDATES WITH BACKGROUND

By Arun Saronchai

BANGKOK (AA) - Judges at Bangkok's military court have again postponed the trial of two ethnic Uighur men on charges of involvement in last year's Bangkok bombing in order to track down a Turkic language speaker to translate for the duo.

A court official told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday that the trial of Adem Karadag and Yusuf Mieraili will be postponed until mid-November.

It is the third such postponement after the men's original translator, Uzbek man Sirojiddin Bakhodirov, was arrested by Thai police on drugs charges, and the court refused a defense request to bring in someone from the London-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC).

Uzbek and Uighur are dialects of the Turkic language family spoken by Turkic peoples from Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China.

According to its website, the WUC's focus is to promote the right of the Uighur people to use peaceful, nonviolent, and democratic means to determine the political future of East Turkestan, however China has designated the WUC and affiliates as terrorist organizations.

Many people refer to China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region -- home to many ethnic minority groups, including Turkic Uighur people -- as East Turkestan, a name the Chinese government actively discourages.

The official -- who did not wish to be named citing court policy -- said Wednesday that the court has been unable to find suitable translators as Uighur was not a common language, and it will now ask for help from China's embassy in Bangkok.

The August 2015 bomb at a Hindu shrine in downtown Bangkok left 20 people dead and more than 100 others injured.

Karadag and Mieraili have been charged with the Aug. 17 2015 bombing at a Hindu shrine in downtown Bangkok, which left 20 people dead and 125 others injured.

Police have said that both suspects have confessed to being paid by a mastermind to build and plant the bomb, but Karadag’s lawyer has said his client was tortured into a confession by plainclothes men in military custody.

"My client was intimidated by these men. They were waterboarded, threatened with large dogs and threatened with deportation to China," Choochart Khanphai -- who claims his client is really named Bilal Mohammed -- told reporters Jan. 16.

Both Karadag and Mieraili have refused to provide their addresses in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region out of “fear of reprisal" from the government, who the Muslim minority group accuses of curtailing their cultural and religious rights.

Karadag and Mieraili are the only two suspects arrested in the case, despite the fact that Thai authorities issued a list of over 15 -- with Thai, Turkish and Chinese nationalities -- in the first months of an investigation underlined as “confused” by some observers.

Several analysts have linked the bombing to the deportation in July 2015 -- a month before the bombing -- of 109 Uighur to China by the Thai junta.

The deportation raised international condemnation and demonstrations took place in front of the Thai consulate in Istanbul in Turkey, which is home to a large Uighur diaspora.

But Thai police have rejected the theory, alleging that the bombing was revenge by a human smuggling network unhappy about a crackdown by Thai authorities.