Is it true that 1999 E200 Mercedes cannot have its A/C turned off?

[hk20000]

My silly dad went out and bought an accident-ed E200 Mercedes while I was away from the country. What he bought was an officially imported E200 model that's identical to the European version (this is in Hong Kong, btw).

The funny thing is that the on dashboard "EC" button does not function and the A/C remains on all the time. I find this very weird and unlikely but the local mechanic says a E200 is like that.

Having no way to find out about it I resort to asking you guys here. As E200 models were not sold in Canada/USA I cannot find out about it otherwise.

What has happened is that the A/C pulley has semi-seized up and the belt squeaks like hell every time the car starts from a stop. I reckon it's due to the fact that the electric clutch (I can see its existence, which raises more of my suspicion that it's just a malfunction of the EC switch) has failed to release the compressor at startup, and some monkey of a mechanic has hard wired the compressor to run always, causing excessive wear on the belts and other systems.

Please let me know if you know about this.