Thai Foreign Min denies western media report on secret US prison

Bangkok, Sep 11 (UNI) Thailand again denied today that it had allowed US intelligence agencies to hold terror suspects on its soil as reported in the Western media.

''We have denied any rumours or information that secret prisons were allowed in Thailand,'' Thai Foreign Ministry Spokesman Kitti Wasinondh said.

He was responding to a New York Times report which claimed that in 2002 Thai authorities had permitted the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to detain and interrogate an associate of Osama bin Laden in a Thai prison at an undisclosed location.

The suspect was said to have died in the Thai prison.

Last year, another leading US daily reported that Thailand was among several countries where the CIA ran secret detention centres to interrogate terror suspects.

Caretaker Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had then denied the report.

UNI XC PR MIR RK1700