Arrest warrant issued in second Bangkok explosion

An arrest warrant has been issued for an unidentified suspect over an explosion that took place at a pier in Bangkok a day after 20 people were killed at a shrine in the Thai capital, police said on Friday.

"The Southern Bangkok Criminal Court approved an arrest warrant against a man of unknown nationality over the second blast based on CCTV footage," national police spokesman Prawut Thawornsiri said in a statement released late Thursday.

The warrant describes the suspect in a blue shirt as an Asian male, aged 25-30, 170 cm tall, with yellow-white skin, thick eyebrows, a high-bridged nose and thick hair, the Bangkok Post reported.

The grainy video footage showed the suspect kicking a bag into the water near the Sathon ferry pier on the night of August 17, soon after the blast at Bangkok's Hindu Erawan shrine that killed 20 people, mostly tourists and injured over 120 others.

However, police have not definitively linked the two blasts.

"We have not yet concluded whether the two blasts are linked to each other," Prawut said.

In the shrine bombing investigation, police are focusing on a man seen in blurry security camera footage.

The footage shows a man in a yellow shirt and dark hair removing a backpack after entering the packed shrine and walking away from the scene before the explosion.

Last week, an arrest warrant was issued for an "unidentified foreign man" seen in the video footage along with an image of the suspect.