Police in Thailand arrested a suspect Saturday in connection with the bombing earlier this month that killed at least 20 people.  Thai officials, in a national broadcast on all channels, displayed a photo of the suspect, a stack of Turkish passports and materials they said were used in bomb making, including detonators, ball bearings and a container pipe.

The announcement is the first reported significant breakthrough since the August 17 blast at the popular Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok killed 20 people — Thais, Chinese,  Malaysians, a Singaporean and an Indonesian — and wounding more than 100 people of numerous nationalities.

The bombing was the worst single mass casualty attack in Thailand.

The military junta’s announcement came hours after a “foreign man,” said to be 28 years of age, was taken into custody on the eastern fringe of Bangkok

Authorities say the suspect had rented five rooms in the same building. It was surrounded on Saturday by more than 100 police officers and soldiers who cordoned off the area after the suspect was apprehended.  

Thai police have come under criticism for their investigation in which they had released contradictory information about possible suspects in the bombing.

The prime suspect was captured on closed circuit television — a man in a yellow t-shirt who left a bag at the shrine just before the explosion.

Authorities repeatedly refrained from calling the attack an act of terrorism and denied to VOA that Chinese were likely the primary target.

In recent days speculation had increased on a possible link to China’s ethnic Uighur minority — or their co-religious sympathizers in Turkey.

Thailand’s military government last month forcibly repatriated more than 100 Uighur refugees to China, a move condemned by international human rights groups.

That led to an attack on the Thai consulate in Istanbul where windows were smashed. 
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