Kathu Police handed over their case evidence and documents to the Phuket Provincial Public Prosecutor’s Office on October 26, confidently stating that the case should be brought to the court “within two weeks”.
However, Public Prosecutor Jessada Banditmongkolkul said that he needed at least one more month to bring an Ace Condo case to court. (See story here)
Despite making that statement, when The Phuket News contacted Mr Banditmongkolkul on Wednesday (Jan 20) he could not confirm when the case would be passed to court.
“The prosecutor’s office need to be careful about all the evidence and laws involved in this case before we bring it to court,” he said.
“We do not want to specify when the case will go to court, but we will make it as fast as we can,” he added.
He said the case contained a lot of information, involves many people and covers a number of laws.
The case aims to bring a a slew of charges against the developer, The Nine Property (Patong) Co, including fraud, developing land without the required permits, failure to obtain a building permit, and contravention of the Consumer Protection Act. (See story here)
However, Mr Jessada went on to say that he is dealing with a criminal case and that the victims can still bring civil charges against the developers of the Ace 1 Condominium project in Patong if they want to claim their money back.
“The victims can bring their case to court as a civil case by themselves to get their money back,” he told The Phuket News on Wednesday.
“They do not have to wait for the prosecutor’s office,” he said.
Mr Jessada also stated that he believed that the customers will get their money back, with interest, because the developer has clearly broken the agreement stated in the relevant documents.
“The court will make their decision based on the evidence provided, and if found guilty the court can order the Ace Condo developer to pay back the money with interest,” he said.
Meanwhile, Col Angkul Klaiklueng of the Royal Thai Police Consumer Protection Division in Bangkok who was overseeing the case, and who in November told The Phuket News that he was delighted that the case was finally heading toward trial, said that the police had completed their work and that it is all now in the prosecutor’s hands.
“Kathu police have handed the case to the prosecutor so it is now up to them to pass the case to the court. We have done our job,” Col Angkul said.