



Thailand seizes North Korean weapons haul


Ben Doherty, Bangkok

Thai police and soldiers surround the Russian transporter plane at Bangkok's Don Muang airport.

Thai police and soldiers surround the Russian transporter plane at Bangkok's Don Muang airport. Photo: AP

THIRTY-FIVE tonnes of North Korean weapons, including missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and explosives, have been seized from a Russian transporter plane that stopped to refuel in Bangkok during an apparent arms run to Asia.

The massive cache, uncovered by Thai authorities on a tip-off from the United States, was allegedly being flown to ''a south Asian country'' illegally in order to help North Korea beat UN sanctions on arms trading.

And there was a suggestion late yesterday from Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva that the arms may have been bound for terrorist organisations.

''We are not yet clear why they were transporting these weapons … security and intelligence services are continuing to investigate. It is not yet clear if this is terrorist activity.''

Impoverished North Korea earns more than $1 billion a year selling weapons, but was banned from moving any arms in or out of the country by the UN after it conducted a nuclear test in May.

A Thai government spokesman said the crates on board the plane held a huge array of functioning weapons.

''From our visual inspection there seem to be several types of weapons, components and materials: long tubes, shoulder-fired missiles, certain types of rocket-propelled grenades,'' Panitan Wattanayagorn said.

But some crates taken from the aircraft had not yet been opened, Mr Panitan said. The full payload has been taken to an air force base in central Thailand and will be inspected Tuesday. The plane remains under guard at the airport.

The five men on board the plane, four Kazakhs and a Belarusian, have been arrested, but are reportedly saying little to investigators. But it is believed the plane was flown empty from Russia before being loaded with the weapons in Pyongyang.

The plane originally asked to land at Bangkok's main passenger terminal, Suvarnabhumi, on Friday but was diverted to the city's second airport, Don Muang, by air traffic controllers.

The flight schedule says the plane was headed for Colombo, Sri Lanka, for its next refuelling stop, but security authorities believe the weapons were ultimately bound for Sri Lanka, Pakistan or the Middle East.

An air force official said US intelligence agencies had asked Thai authorities to search the plane when it landed.

''We were approached by the United States, seeking our co-operation to examine the suspected plane. It came from North Korea and was heading for somewhere in South Asia, probably Pakistan,'' he said.

But a spokesman for the US embassy in Bangkok claimed no knowledge of a request from the US.

Initially, the plane's crew told investigators the 12 tightly sealed wood and metal crates on board held oil-drilling equipment.

The five men - Kazakhs Alexandr Zrybnev, Viktor Abdullayev, Vitaliy Shumkov, Ilyas Issakov and Belarusian Mikhail Petukhou - will face court in Bangkok today, probably on charges of violating aviation regulations, arms trafficking and making false declarations.

After Pyongyang conducted its latest nuclear test, a UN resolution obliged countries to ''inspect and destroy'' heavy weaponry bound to or from North Korea. No major seizures have been made public since the resolution was passed, but a North Korean freighter suspected of carrying an arms shipment turned around after being tracked by the US Navy for nearly a month.

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