A prosecution witness who claimed who have taken a photograph of one of the two adult defendants in the case of the CentralWorld shopping-complex fire in May last year, yesterday gave confusing testimony as to how sure he was that the man in the blurry picture was in fact Saichon Paebua.

Ratchaphon Charoensuk, a security guard at CentralWorld who was assigned to take pictures of intruders in the immediate aftermath of the May 19 military suppression of red shirts in the area, first told the court that he had recognised Saichon from the photo he took, and had later identified him to the police on that basis.

However, after further questioning yesterday by the prosecution, he told the court that he might have recognised Saichon from both the memory of what he had seen through his viewfinder and again by looking at the picture he took.Ratchapon said he had taken the blurry picture from a distance of about 20 metres and through a glass window.

He told the court he was unaware of whether Saichon had been engaged in either theft or arson.

Saichon and another red-shirt man face the maximum penalty of death for allegedly setting fire to the building and causing the death of a man who is believed to have suffocated on the fourth floor of the shopping complex.

Saichon, who was not arrested at the scene but more than two weeks later at Sanam Luang, told The Nation yesterday afternoon that he had been forced to admit that he was the man in the photograph because "police threatened to lynch me and send me to the military".

Saichon - a red-shirt guard - is illiterate, claims he is unsure of his exact age and says he can only sign his name.

A defence lawyer yesterday tried to cast doubt over whether the man found dead after the fire had indeed died due to suffocation or had been killed by someone prior to the fire.

However, a witness appeared unable to provide any conclusive testimony beyond saying that by the time he saw the body, it was "slightly smelly".

The trial continues today with the prosecution vowing to screen a damning video implicating the two defendants.