The chef Daniel Sancho has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the death of Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta , occurred on August 2 last year in the ‘bungalow’ they shared on the Thai island paradise of Koh Phangan.
The Thai court considers in its sentence that it has been accredited with conclusive evidence the premeditated murderand has ruled against the Spaniard on all three charges against him.
According to sources present in the courtroom, Daniel Sancho has shown his remorse and wept.
The court also ordered him to pay compensation to Arrieta’s family in the amount of $119,000 (106.000 euros).
After a year in prison and amid great expectation, Sancho has received the verdict. The court case, however, does not end here. Appeals against this ruling can be made first to the Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court. The process could take between one and three years if the case finally reaches the Supreme Court. It is unusual, however, for the higher courts to modify important issues in the original judgment.
The facts date back to a year ago, when the police arrested the son of actor Rodolfo Sancho and grandson of Sancho Gracia for the bizarre murder of Arrieta. The cook, whose cameras had recorded him buying knives for hours in a large supermarket, initially confessed to the crime: “I am guilty, but I was Edwin’s hostage. He was holding me hostage. It was a glass cage. He was obsessed with me.”
Rodolfo Sancho: “We will always keep on fighting”
Defense turnaround
Later, however, he reversed course and his defense strategy has been based on assuring that this was a accidental death during the course of an argument. If instead of going to the police he decided to dismember the body and scatter it wherever he could, it is because he was in a “dissociated state” due to shock, the defense maintains. It must be said that since the 30-year-old made his first confession to the Thai police, he has changed his version of events at least six times.
Daniel Sancho’s lawyers: “The sentence will be appealed for sure”
During these months that he has been in custody, Sancho has been interned in the Samui prison, very friendly and fluffy by national standards, where he practices yoga and muay thai in the hospital module with which he has been awarded for an alleged injury that seems incompatible with the daily practice of martial arts.
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