No U.S. secret prison in Thailand: Thai FM

Thailand's Foreign Ministry denied on Monday a New York Times article which said Thai government had allowed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States to detain a henchman of Osama bin Laden, who died in a Thai cell from serious wounds.

The New York Times on Sunday published a front page article that claimed Abu Zubaydah, an Osama bin Laden henchman, was interrogated and tortured in a "safe house" in Thailand in the spring of 2002.

The article, citing "sources from a number of government agencies", said Zubaydah died of infected wounds in Thailand.

"We have denied any rumors or any information indicating that secret prisons were allowed in Thailand," Thai Foreign Ministry's spokesman Kitti Wasinondh reiterated on Monday.

Another U.S. newspaper, Washington Post, in November last year had reported that the CIA was operating secret prisons in eight countries abroad, including in Afghanistan, Thailand and several European countries.

Thai caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra flatly denied the claim last year. He said in November that Thailand had only one(terrorist) arrest, and it was Hambali. "We have sent him to the U.S. long ago, and we don't have any secret jails or whatever, so we totally deny it." Thaksin said at that time.

In 2003 Thai authorities arrested Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, in the central province of Ayutthaya, 70 km north to Bangkok.

Hambali is believed to be la-Qaeda's point man in Asia and one of the masterminds behind the October 2002 bombing of Indonesia's Bali island that killed 202 people.

Source: Xinhua