A CONSTRUCTION magnate, builders, designers and engineers surrendered to police today on criminal negligence charges for the deadly collapse of a Bangkok high-rise in the March 28 earthquake that hit Myanmar.

Premchai Karnasuta, the president of the Italian-Thai Development Company, the main Thai contractor for the building project, as well as designers and engineers were among 17 charged with the felony of professional negligence causing death, Bangkok deputy police chief Noppasin Poonsawat said.

Mr Noppasin said those who met police today formally denied the charges. Several have previously issued public denials in response to allegations in the media.

Ninety-two people were confirmed to have died in the rubble of the building that had been under construction and a small number of other people remain unaccounted for. 

The building, which was to become a new State Audit Office, was the only one in Thailand to collapse in the earthquake that was centred in neighbouring Myanmar. 

More than 3,700 people were killed by the quake in Myanmar which also caused major damage in Mandalay, the country’s second biggest city, and the capital Naypyidaw.

Mr Noppasin told a news conference that evidence and testimony from experts suggested the building plan did not meet standards and codes. 

The Bangkok Post newspaper said that police had also determined the project showed “structural flaws in the core lift shaft and substandard concrete and steel.”

In 2019, Mr Premchai’s case is his second major tangle with the law. In 2019, he was convicted of wildlife poaching and served about three years in prison.

He was found guilty of killing protected animals and illegal possession of weapons after park rangers found a hunting party at a wildlife sanctuary in 2018 with carcasses of a rare black panther, a kalij pheasant and a barking deer. 

The panther had been butchered and its meat cooked for soup.