Bangkok (AP) – A construction magnate, manufacturers, designers and engineers went to the police on Friday for criminal negligence for the deadly collapse of a bass of Bangkok in the March 28 Earthquake It struck myanmar.
Premchai Karnasuta, president of the Italian-development-development, the main Thai entrepreneur of the construction project, as well as designers and engineers, were among 17 accused of the crime of professional negligence causing death, said Bangkok police chief Noppasin Poonsawat.
Noppasin said those who met police on Friday had officially denied the charges. Several have already delivered public refusals in response to allegations in the media.
Ninety-two people were confirmed dead in the rubble of the building under construction and a small number of other people remain unable to. The building, which was to become a new state audit office, was the only one in Thailand to collapse in the earthquake which was centered in neighboring Myanmar. The search for victims On the site has been interrupted, although the efforts to identify the remains via DNA will continue.
Noppasin said at a press conference that the evidence and the testimonies of experts suggested that the construction plan had not met Standards and codes. The Bangkok Post newspaper said the police also determined that the project showed “structural defects in the basic lift well and concrete and lower quality steel”.
The Thai media have reported allegations of reprehensible acts in the project almost every day since the collapse of the building, many of which involved irregular documentation for the project. Their reports have highlighted the role of the partner of Chinese Italian-Thai co-entreprise, the China Railway company n ° 10which is involved in projects around the world.
One of the 17 accused on Friday was the Chinese setting Zhang Chuanling, director of the Contreprise de China Railway n ° 10 with the Italian-Thai development. He was already arrested last month to violate Thai business law, wrongly using Thai candidates to serve as Chinese company proxies to allegedly control the co -entreprise. Three Thai leaders were also arrested for charges.
Thursday, a criminal court issued arrest mandates against 17 for negligence. Noppasin said 15 went to a police station in the morning and that the other two should do so later on Friday.
The epicenter of the earthquake was in the center MyanmarWhere he killed more than 3,700 people and caused major damage to Mandalay, the second largest city in the country and the capital Nayyitaw.
The case of Premchai is its second major entanglement with the law. In 2019, he was found guilty of Fauna poaching And served about three years in prison.
He was found guilty of having killed protected animals and an illegal possession of weapons after the park guards found a hunting party in a wildlife sanctuary in 2018 with carcasses of a rare panther black, a Kalij pheasant and a barking deer. The panther had been massacred and its meat cooked for the soup.