Re: 2 cops taken by Red Shirts
Red Shirt leaders escape arrest at Bangkok hotel
BANGKOK : All the leaders of Thailand's Red Shirt protest movement who were at a Bangkok hotel besieged by security forces managed to escape Friday, protest leader Nattawut Saikuar told AFP.
Television footage showed an anti-government protest leader descending a rope to leave the SC Park hotel in Bangkok's northern outskirts where government security forces had been deployed to arrest him.
Red Shirt leader Arisman Pongruangrong told supporters by megaphone he had escaped an assassination attempt.
"He wanted to kill me. The policeman tried to kill me. My room 377 has two bombs in it," Arisman told the assembled Red Shirts amid chaotic scenes outside the hotel.
Thai deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban said in a nationally televised address on Friday that "terrorists" and anti-government protest leaders were believed to be hiding in the hotel.
He urged "innocent" protesters to leave an anti-government rally site in Bangkok's commercial district, suggesting authorities would go there to make further arrests.