But she spurns his Thai Rak Thai party, and is running as an independent “Don’t worry that I will be dominated,” she promises. Apasara Hongsakul, her sister, is a former Miss Universe willing to campaign for votes.Close on her heels is Apirak Kosayodhin, 43, of the opposition Democrat Party. His good looks set him apart from the crowded field and his CV follows a proved formula. He used to run the Orange mobile phone network.Chalerm Yoobamrung, a former policeman whose youngest son was recently acquitted for killing a law officer, is unlikely to win.Leena Jungawat is tailed by transvestites and bawdy musicians. If victorious, this lawyer promises to abolish queues at city offices, sending civil servants to make house calls instead.. The man whose capture in Pakistan sparked the arrests of 12 al-Qai’da suspects in Britain, and is alleged to have revealed plans for attacks in Britain and America, studied at London’s City University last year, it has emerged.

Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan completed a 10-week evening course in human resources management starting in January 2003, the university said The course cost £145. The course cost £145.
It is one of six visits Mr Khan allegedly made to Britain in the last few years. All the latest developments in the hunt for al-Qa’ida operatives appears to lead back to Mr Khan. He has been cited as the source of new information that led to Tom Ridge, the US Homeland Security Secretary’s now infamous orange alert speech.A Pakistani who graduated from Karachi university, Mr Khan is said to speak English with a British accent But a British link would be nothing new. Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man sentenced to death in Pakistan for the kidnapping and murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, was born and educated in Britain. And he may not be the only militant whose upbringing made him able to flit effortlessly between Britain and Pakistan.The details of Mr Khan’s arrest, and his exact role in al-Qa’ida, remain murky. When asked by The Independent the Pakistani Interior Minister, Faisal Salim Hayyat, denied reports that he is a “computer expert”.

Pakistan maintains that the name Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan may be an alias. Most al-Qa’ida suspects have them, and Mr Khan has at least one other: Abu Talha.Reports about his arrest differ. Most now agree he was captured in Lahore, but some early reports said it was Karachi. He is said to have been briefing that he was a vital link in al-Qa’ida’s communication network; American intelligence sources have been briefing that he set up a system for sending coded messages.Mr Khan is believed to have received training at an al-Qa’ida camp in Afghanistan but, again, accounts differ. Messages are said to have been sent to him by courier from al-Qa’ida leaders on the run in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area He then sent them on by e-mail. But this contradicts the widely held view among al-Qa’ida watchers that the core group had been decimated, with its leadership unable to direct operations.Recent attacks were said to have been the work of allied groups whose militants were trained at al-Qa’ida camps in Afghanistan, but were no longer receiving instructions from them.