Officials are studying the “legal aspects” of compensation with a Poipet casino after a fire killed at least 26 people while those trapped inside reported a lack of alarms, sprinklers and safety measures.
The Grand Diamond City casino is being demolished after last week’s fire that tore through multiple buildings on both sides of National Road 5 approaching the Thai border.
People were trapped in the building for hours. Some jumped to their deaths, while one worker said she saw the company removing casino equipment before helping those inside. No one in the building even alerted her to the fire, she said. Thai and Cambodian families have said they were missing family members even after authorities called off their rescue operation last week.
Banteay Meanchey provincial police chief Sithy Loh said this week that police were not involved in compensation.
“I don’t know. … This is not my capability,” Loh said.
Provincial administration spokesperson Sek Sokhom said compensation would not come from the province.
“The company with an inter-ministerial joint commission is studying the legal aspects of what to do next,” Sokhom said.
Sokhom added on Friday that he was not sure exactly who owned the casino’s land, but the area was controlled by a quartet of tycoons.
“I am not sure which oknha owns the land, but in the beginning the land belonged to okhna Ly Yong Phat but later he sold it,” Sokhom said. The three others who had been in the area were Kok An, a ruling-party senator who owns the Crown casino and has been linked to scam and human-trafficking compounds; the late Tea Soth, brother of Defense Minister Tea Banh; and “oknha Tony,” possibly a reference to Tony Tandijono, a former director of the Casino Poipet-Aranh and Holiday Palace Hotel, a property directly south of Grand Diamond City, Sokhom said.
Neither Grand Diamond director Mean Veasna nor Yong Phat could be reached on Friday.
National Committee for Disaster Management head Kun Kim previously acknowledged problems with the casino’s safety, and said the province would consider legal action.
