The Royal Thai Navy announced this morning it has begun to remove a home built on the high seas whose owners have threatened legal retaliation over.
About 300 naval officers were stripping down the “seastead” off the coast of Phuket, which was first searched by Navy personnel nine days ago, a Navy Commander announced just after 10am. this morning revealed.
Vice Adm. Witthanat Kochsanei, the deputy chief of Naval Operations Division 3 in charge of the case, said the seastead would be brought to the Phuket Deep Sea Port before being transported to Vichit Police Station. He said the work dismantling it would be completed by this afternoon. Three vessels including the HTMS Si Racha were participating in the effort.
The couple who owned it and say it was built outside of Thai waters announced Friday they would sue Thailand in the International Court of the Law of the Seas.
“There is no need to destroy, sink or remove our seasted [sic],” read a statement posted to Ocean Builders, which had planned to begin sales last week on additional prospective units. “Any respective activity would be illegal. We are reserving all of our property rights on the seasted insofar.”
Fugitive American bitcoiner says seastead built outside Thai waters
Although Ocean Builders says it built the US$150,000 structure, the site appears to be operated by Chad Elwartowski, an American, who is now on the run with his girlfriend, Supranee Thepdet, aka Bitcoin Girl Thailand. The Immigration Bureau has pulled Elwartowski’s visa.
The legal status of the structure is unclear. Although territorial waters are by convention considered to extend no further than 12 nautical miles from shore – the seastead is closer to 14 nautical miles – the Thai government does have resource claims to a broader swath of sea falling within its “economic zone.”
On Sunday, Elwartowski wrote online that he hoped Thailand would recognize they posed no threat to national security and drop the charge they violated Thai sovereignty, a potentially capital offense.
“I am a pacifist and Nadia is a Buddhist and Buddhists are supposed to respect the sanctity of life. So there is no way we could ever be a threat to anyone,” he wrote.
Additional reporting Teirra Kamolvattanavith
Related High-Seas Tales:
Fugitive American bitcoiner says seastead built outside Thai waters
Bitcoin couple face death penalty for ‘seasteading’ off Phuket
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