A provincial court in central Thailand has detained a teenager who posted a picture of a westerner with a message about bomb attacks.

On Tuesday, 25 August 2015, the Provincial Court of Suphan Buri Province in central Thailand granted the police permission to detain Thanaton Thongsopha, aka Mos, a 19-year-old vocational student, who is accused of posting information about a bomb attack in Suphan Buri province and the picture of a westerner bombing suspect on Facebook and Line, an online chat application.

According to the record, the police believe that the suspect may be involved in a Facebook account named ‘Bombing Bangkok’, which posted information about explosive attacks in the province along with the picture of a western man online.

The message reads “this is the picture of a bomber who came to look around Suphan Buri market in order to prepare a bomb attack, please share this information.”

After the message about the bomb was posted, on 21 August 2015, an object believed to be a bomb was found in front of Lert Thanee Hotel in Mueang District of Suphan Buri. However, it was later found that the object was not a bomb.

The police later found that the message was initially posted by Thanathon.

The suspect will be detained for an initial custody period of 12 days. The family of the suspect offered 100,000 baht (about 2,806 USD) bail to the court. However, the court rejected the bail request, saying that the investigation process has not been completed and there was a flight risk due to the severity of the charge.

Thanathon confessed to the police without a lawyer on the first day after his arrest that he was the one who posted the picture of a western man whom he alleged to be a suspect, which was taken in front of Tesco Lotus Department Store in Mueang District of the province, together with messages about bomb attacks.

However, he said that he only did so with good intentions and that he is not involved with the Facebook account titled ‘Bombing Bangkok’

On 21 August 2015, the man in the picture that was posted along with the bomb threat message, George William Bevan, a school teacher in the province, came to report to police that he is not involved with the Erawan bombing on 17 August 2015 in Bangkok which killed at least 20 people and injured about 120.

After the 17 August Bangkok bombing hit international headlines, the Thai authorities announced that those who post false information on social networks about bomb threats and suspects would be charged with offences.