Viet three arrested over Thai bomb scare

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Three men have been arrested over a bomb scare at the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok this week, police say.

Charges have been pressed against one man and two others have been detained, the national police bureau said in a statement.

COUNTRY PROFILE At a glance: Vietnam Provided by CountryWatch.com    CNN.com Asia More news from our Asia edition

A police investigator told Reuters the men, described as "Vietnamese dissidents," were captured in the Thai capital after a tipoff from a taxi driver who believed he had dropped off the man responsible for the incident at the embassy early on Tuesday.

"We have arrested three of them so far and are interrogating them to lead to the arrest of the whole gang soon," said the police investigator, who declined to be identified.

The police statement identified the charged man as Pham Nguyen Thanh Hien Si, 38, who could face a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment for illegal possession of explosives and conspiracy to cause an explosion.

Thai police defused two bombs at the embassy, but later said the devices seemed to be intended not to work as their detonators contained no explosive.

The incident caused major disruption around the Vietnamese embassy, which is close to the U.S. embassy, the residence of the U.S. ambassador and the Dutch embassy. Police said a backpack containing three kg (6.6 lb) of explosives made from fertiliser was left outside the embassy, and a box containing five kg of fertiliser explosive was thrown over the wall and into the embassy compound.

The backpack and the box each contained a detonator and a mobile phone for remote detonation, police said.

The police statement said the suspects were linked to Vietnamese dissidents who were convicted in Vietnam last month.

A court in southern Vietnam handed down jail terms of up to 20 years on May 29 for 37 people convicted of plotting terrorism and anti-socialist activity.

Vietnamese official media has said all the defendants were linked to the Free Vietnam movement, made up of anti-communist exiles.

Over the past year there have been attacks on Vietnamese embassies in Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Paris and London.

Most were blamed on exiled Vietnamese opposed to the government.

Reuters contributed to this report.