Next August 29th Daniel Sancho will finally learn his sentence in the Koh Samui Provincial Court. The Spanish chef, who has been in prison for over a year, faces a possible death sentence – which Thai law provides for crimes of blood – for the alleged murder and subsequent dismemberment of Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta.
It was in August of last year when the son of Rodolfo Sancho traveled to Thailand on vacation. He had planned to stay there from August 31 to August 3. The day after his arrival, according to footage captured by security cameras at a supermarket, Sancho bought a knife, a sponge, gloves and a cleaning pad, as well as garbage bags and cleaning products. He also bought a kayak.
Days later, Arrieta arrives. The alleged crime is committed in the early hours of August 2. According to the chef, the incident occurred after a fight with Edwin, who allegedly wanted to have sex with him. The Colombian had threatened to distribute compromising photographic material and the dispute ended with a punch from the Spaniard and the death of the Colombian, who hit his head on the sink and lost consciousness. Rodolfo Sancho’s son, after seeing that his friend’s body remained motionless, decided to cut it into 17 pieces and divide them into several bags. Some ended up in a landfill and others were thrown into the sea using the kayak he had bought.
On August 3, Daniel cleaned the hotel room where the incident occurred and then faked his friend’s disappearance. The first remains of Arrieta’s body found in the Moo 4 landfill in Koh Phangan, together with the scratches that the police noticed on Sancho’s body when he went to report his friend’s disappearance, made him the prime suspect.
On August 5, he pleads guilty even though he felt “forced” to kill him. «I am guilty, but I was Edwin’s hostage. He held me hostage. It was a glass cage, but it was a cage,» confessed to the agents. Sancho collaborates in the reconstruction of the events.
Two days later, the Thai courts ordered Daniel to be placed in provisional prison and charges of premeditated murder and concealment of evidence were brought. He was transferred to Koh Samui prison. Since the trial held last spring, the young man has remained in prison awaiting the sentence which will be announced next Thursday. Marcos García-Montes, the Spaniard’s lawyer, in collaboration with the Thai lawyer Aprichat Srinuel, was optimistic with LA RAZON, stating that “a sentence of more than 8 years will not be imposed” since they do not consider that there was premeditation in Arrieta’s death. A version that is not shared by Juango Ospina, in charge of the defence of the Arrieta family, for whom “in Thailand there are issues that are indisputable. They understand and so do the people who have experienced this procedure that there was a death that was planned” so they point out that he will be sentenced to capital punishment. Death penalty, life imprisonment… on the 29th Sancho’s future will be revealed.