Officers claimed significant progress Wednesday in getting to the bottom of Thailand's deadliest attack in history after an arrested man admitted being near the August 17th blast and fingerprints tied him to the room of a suspected bomber. The suspect's identity has not yet been made public, but police said he was found less than a kilometer away from the Cambodian border on Tuesday.

According to police, the man denied being the bomber seen in CCTV footage, but conceded that he had been on the scene.

"It's natural that the suspect will deny he did it, but we still have to continue to look into that," Chakthip Chaijinda, deputy national police chief, told the press.

"Right now the case has progressed about 70 percent already."

The suspect in question had stayed in the Nong Chok area of Bangkok, the same as another man arrested in connection with the bombing during a Saturday raid that found hundreds of fake passports alongside explosives like TNT and C4. They also confiscated bomb-making equipment such as detonators, ball bearings, and a possible bomb casing.

Police search for possible motive

The explosion at the popular Erawan Shrine injured over one hundred people, most of them foreigners, on top of the 20 who lost their lives. No group has publically claimed responsibility for the attack, although speculation has begun to circulate that the suspect may be part of a group seeking revenge for Thailand's repatriation of ethnic Uighurs to China in July. Muslim minority Uighurs say they face persecution and oppression in their native China.

National police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri said that the suspect arrested Wednesday had fingerprints which "match with those found on a bottle that contains a bombing substance," found in Saturday's raid.

Prawut cautioned, however, that further DNA tests were needed in order to prove the connection.

es/kms (Reuters, AFP, AP)