 Soon after the coup, the junta released three army suspects in the car bomb plot.Junta leader and Army Commander-in-Chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin appointed himself head of ISOC (its previous head had been the prime minister) and transformed ISOC into a "government within a government".The new ISOC was criticized as being a shadowy puppet master pulling the strings of existing agencies, answerable to no one but its leader.