Thais get $10m for Hambali arrest

Thais get $10m for Hambali arrest

Agencies, Bangkok

The United States has given Thailand a US$10 million bounty for the arrest of top Southeast Asian terror suspect Hambali, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Wednesday.

"The money has arrived and I will be the one who decides who will get what," Thaksin told reporters. "The money disbursement must not cause disunity among security agencies here."

He said 10 officers named by Washington would receive a large part of the reward with the rest shared among the charities of police and military units involved in last month's capture of the man believed to be al-Qaeda's top man in the region.

He said the money would be split among the National Security Council, the Military Security Center, the Special Branch Police and local police who helped in the arrest.

Earlier, reports surfaced in Bangkok that Washington had offered a $4 million bounty for Hambali's capture but this was never confirmed by American authorities.

Thaksin did not say when the Americans gave the money but a Thai government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was presented after a 50-person U.S. security team arrived on Tuesday as part of security arrangements for Bush's Oct. 20-21 visit to Thailand.

Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, is accused of masterminding last year's nightclub blasts that killed 202 people on the Indonesian island of Bali and other bombings. He is the alleged operations chief of Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), a Southeast Asian terrorist network with links to al-Qaeda.

Shortly after his Aug. 11 capture, U.S. President George W. Bush called Hambali "one of the world's most lethal terrorists."

Hambali was arrested in the ancient temple city of Ayutthaya, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Bangkok, by Thai forces and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was handed over to U.S. authorities three days later and flown to an undisclosed location for interrogation.