January 15, 2010
BANGKOK (AFP) - Thai police said Thursday they brought charges against five alleged arms traffickers over a sanctions-busting planeload of weapons seized last month en route from North Korea.
The Belarussian pilot and four Kazakh crew were charged with possessing illegal weapons and ammunition, smuggling weapons and other banned products and for failing to report their cache, Police Colonel Supisarn Pakdinaruenart told reporters.
The five men were arrested last month after their Ilyushin-76 plane was impounded in Bangkok with a 35-tonne cargo of weaponry including missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.
The police have questioned 21 witnesses and it is now for the Attorney General's office to decide if the case will go to court, Supisarn said.
The suspects have been held since they were arrested at Bangkok's domestic Don Mueang airport on December 11 after the haul was discovered.
Permission to detain the men must be renewed every 12 days and the third extension on their incarceration lasts until January 18.
The Russian-made plane requested to land at Don Mueang airport where the suspects claimed they were carrying oil drilling equipment bound for Ukraine.
But a flight plan obtained by researchers showed the plane was bound for Iran, while US intelligence chief Dennis Blair said last month that it was headed for an unspecified Middle East destination.
The United Nations banned all North Korean arms exports in a tougher resolution passed in June following its latest missile and nuclear tests.
The Bangkok case is believed to be the first airborne arms cargo from Pyongyang to have been seized since then.
