By The Diplomat | Created at 2026-06-12 07:17:31 | Updated at 2026-06-12 16:55:36
16 hours ago
A Thai court yesterday sentenced two ethnic Uyghur men to death for their role in a bombing in central Bangkok that killed 20 people more than a decade ago.
The sentence was handed down after Yusufu Mieraili and Bilal Mohammed (aka Adem Karadag), both Chinese nationals, were found guilty of premeditated and attempted murder for their role in the August 2015 bombing of the Erawan Shrine in the busy Ratchaprasong district.
“The defendants committed a single act that violated multiple laws. The court therefore imposed the harshest penalty available under the law, the death sentence,” one member of the four-judge panel said, as the lengthy verdict was read out, as per the AFP news agency.
The two men have previously denied all of the charges against them, and following the verdict, Mieraili was heard to remark, “RIP Thailand’s justice system. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
After the hearing, Chamroen Panompakakorn, one of the two lawyers defending the pair, said that they would appeal against the death sentence. “Don’t be frightened, there are three other courts,” he told reporters. Choochat Kanpai, the other lawyer, said that there were “many aspects of the case that the court has not fully considered, including the treatment of the defendants during the proceedings.”
The bombing of the Erawan Shrine, which is dedicated to the Hindu god Brahma, is popular among foreign tourists, particularly from China. The bombing was one of the worst attacks of its kind on Thai soil. In addition to the 20 people killed, another 120 were injured by the explosives, which authorities believe were left in a backpack. Among those killed were six Thais, five Malaysians, five mainland Chinese, and two Hong Kongers.
Shortly after the bombing, police named 17 suspects, but only Mieraili and Mohammed were initially apprehended. A third suspect, a Thai woman named Wanna Suansan, who was then living in Türkiye, was also named as a suspect and was arrested on her arrival in Thailand in 2017. She was charged with attempted murder, associated murder, and possession of bombs and weapons, but was acquitted in November 2024 for a lack of evidence. A number of the other suspects were from Turkey, which shares ethnic bonds with the Uyghur people and hosts a large Uyghur expatriate community.
While prosecutors have collected evidence from hundreds of witnesses, the case has been beset by delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and problems finding translators for the two suspects. (The trial proceedings were conducted in a mix of Thai, English, and Uyghur.)
The then-military government was also criticized for a lack of transparency in its investigation of the bombing. Both Mieraili and Mohammed supposedly confessed to the bombing, but later retracted their confessions, claiming that they had been tortured in custody. A military court later dismissed their claims.
The motivation for the bombing was initially unclear, with authorities suggesting that it might have been a revenge attack by a people-smuggling gang whose activities were disrupted by a crackdown. There were also suggestions that it might have been related to the ongoing insurgency in southern Thailand.
Security analysts now generally believe that the bombing of the shrine was a response to Thailand’s deportation of 109 Uyghur detainees to China against their will in July 2015. The deportation prompted a storm of outrage from foreign governments and human rights groups, who say that the group would very likely face torture and mistreatment on their return. China has been widely condemned for its policies toward the Uyghurs in the western Xinjiang region, where it has imposed severe restrictions on religious and cultural freedoms.
After the Thai government’s secretive deportation of 40 Muslim Uyghur asylum seekers to China in March 2025, both the U.S. and Japanese governments warned their citizens against traveling to Thailand, stating that it had the potential to provoke a violent response.
