On November 13, in a hearing held in a court on the island of Samui, in Thailand, Daniel Sancho, in provisional detention since August for said crime, pleaded not guilty to the premeditated murder of the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta.
An unexpected move, but Sancho remains firm that the Colombian’s death was due to an accident. Now, his case could take a turn after the head of the Koh Phangan police station, where he was detained, has admitted that he believes that perhaps Sancho did not act alone.
Colonel Panya Niratimanon, the first police officer to interrogate Sancho after his arrest, has given some statements that could give a radical turn to the case; And he believes that the 29-year-old chef might not have acted alone.
The colonel made some revealing statements to Let’s See, in which he raises doubts about whether Rodolfo Sancho’s son had acted alone to commit the alleged crime. The official reveals that there is information about the investigation that he cannot tell because everything is under confidentiality, but he does reveal a key point: “Daniel did not arrive in Thailand from directly from Spain, he came from another country.” And he might not have done it alone.
A detail that was already indicated at the time by the criminologist and lawyer Carmen Balgagón, spokesperson for the Sancho family, who wanted to emphasize weeks ago the possibility that Daniel Sancho had not acted alone, given the times in which the Madrid native allegedly committed the crime. heinous crime. However, her claims were not enough for the Thai Police.
Despite the doubt, this detail only confirms the police theory of the existence of premeditation, key in the request for the maximum sentence for the accused. The colonel remains firm in his belief that Daniel Sancho murdered Edwin Arrieta premeditated. For the official, the death was not accidental, as the young chef insists.
“The fracture of the skull was not an accident, it was Daniel Sancho who grabbed the head and hit it hard against the sink,” he insists to the program, adding that “if necessary we can call the forensic doctors as witnesses so that they can do so.” prove, all of Daniel’s detailed confession coincides with all the evidence we found, biological evidence, knives, bags, gloves, witnesses.”
It will not be until the day the trial is held – presumably, the beginning of 2024 – when the rest of the details of the complete report of the police investigation are discovered and, finally, it is possible to know exactly what happened that night of August 2 in Phangan Island.
From Spain, the legal team representing the chef on behalf of his father, Rodolfo Sancho, continues to work against the clock. Marcos García Montes, head and spokesperson for the office handling the case, has already reacted to the words of the Thai commissioner, assuring that they will present a document based on Thai legislation in which the violation of the fundamental rights of the accused regarding the lack of a Spanish interpreter, the process of investigation and reconstruction of the events or the invitation to a restaurant in a 5-star hotel.
