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BANGKOK, Tuesday (AFP) - A Thai court has issued warrants for the arrest of two Thai Air Force officers and six police in connection with illegal weapons sales to Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said yesterday.

"Among 15 suspects there are two Air Force officers, six police officers - all of them low-ranking - and seven gun shop owners," a crime suppression police spokesman said after the Thai Criminal Court issued the warrants.

The 15 were charged with illegal trading and possession of firearms and falsifying government documents, charges which carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. Air Force chief warrant officer Surachai Sompong has already confessed to supplying 13 pistols to representatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The three LTTE associates were arrested in May in Ranong, a southern coastal town bordering Myanmar, where police seized 10 nine-millimetre pistols, three 11-millimetre pistols and 45,000 rounds of ammunition.

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