Destination of Arms Seized by Thais Is a Mystery

BANGKOK — Ten days after the Thai government announced that it had seized an aircraft carrying weapons from North Korea, the final destination and the buyer of the arms cache remains a mystery.

A research organization based in Belgium that specializes in the analysis of arms trafficking posted documents this week on its Web site that appear to show Iran as the drop-off point.

The lawyer for the five-man crew detained in Thailand maintains that the cargo was to be offloaded in Ukraine, and other experts said it was far too early to reach any conclusions, because documents are often forged and designed to deceive in the smoke-and-mirrors world of arms trafficking.

As the researchers point out, the documents are false in at least one key respect: They say that the cargo was oil-drilling equipment.

The report by the International Peace Information Service, the Belgian organization, said the flight plan of the Ilyushin-76 is consistent with the range and cruise speed of the aircraft. A copy of the documents are posted on their Web site. The report also includes copies of what the authors say are the aircraft’s charter agreement, the air waybill and the aircraft’s certificate of registration.

The report was written in collaboration with TransArms, a U.S.-based group based that researches arms shipments.

The documents appear to show that the flight was chartered early this month by Union Top Management Ltd., a company registered in Hong Kong that was set up in November.

The document is signed by Dario Cabreros, who is described as the company’s representative.

Somsak Saithong, the lawyer for the crew, said he had seen the documents but that his copy of the flight plan shows that the cargo was bound for Ukraine. “I can certify that Iran was not the final destination,” Mr. Somsak said in an interview.

The crew members are being held at a detention center here while the police conduct their investigation. They said in an interview last week that they had traveled the world on similar missions and that they rarely asked about the nature of the cargo they were carrying.

The Thai authorities have not offered more detail on the exact nature of the weapons seized and say they will destroy the arms after they take an inventory and report it to the United Nations Security Council.

But the Thai government also appears wary to investigate too deeply into to the arms shipment.

The deputy prime minister, Suthep Thaugsuban, said last week that the inquiry would not focus on where the weapons were headed. “Thai authorities will not pinpoint where the weapons were destined for delivery in order not to displease a certain country,” he was quoted as saying in the Thai media. He did not elaborate.