Daniel Sancho: "I am convinced that they are going to acquit me"

The young Spaniard Daniel Sancho, accused of the premeditated murder of Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta, is “convinced” that he will be “acquitted” because he acted in “self-defense,” according to what he told EFE exclusively ahead of the trial that will be held in starting April 9 in Thailand.

“I am convinced that they are going to acquit me because it will be proven that it was self-defense,” said Sancho in prison on the Thai island of Samui, when asked about how he faces the possibility of a conviction for murder in a country which contemplates capital punishment for blood crimes.

In addition to the charge of premeditated murder, to which he has pleaded not guilty, Sancho, 29, is accused of hiding the body after dismembering it, a crime to which he has admitted and which could lead to up to a year in prison.

The Spaniard, who confessed to the crime and has been in provisional prison since August 7, revealed that he is in “good spirits” and looking forward to the trial beginning, which will be held between April 9 and April 3. May in Samui.

“(I feel) eager to face it, to finally be heard and to be able to clarify the distortions, the misunderstandings and all the lies that have been told,” said the accused during the visits that EFE made to him in prison on the days March 13 and 14.

After two months of police investigation, the Prosecutor’s Office said that Sancho “had planned the murder” and that he used “violence” to kill Edwin Arrieta, but that it was unknown how he had done it.

“My goal at trial is to prove that it was self-defense. I’m going to prove what really happened,” reiterated the accused, who answered questions behind glass and through a telephone in the prison’s visiting room, Access with electronic devices is not permitted.

Sancho maintains that Arrieta’s death, which occurred on August 2 in a bungalow rented by himself on the island of Phangan, was due to a fight during which the Colombian hit his head.

“It was a fight that I did not start and that had a fatal outcome that I would never have wanted,” argued the Spaniard, trained as a chef and partner in a catering company, who did admit that he dismembered the Colombian’s body and distributed the remains. in various locations on the island and even by sea.

Arrieta’s autopsy, which is included in the summary, has not been able to establish a conclusive cause of death as some parts of the body have not been found, including the torso.

Sancho and Arrieta, who met through Instagram a year earlier due to their common interest in gastronomy, had met on August 2 on the Thai island, known for its full moon parties, to which the Spaniard arrived two days before. and where he planned to stay for several weeks.

The young man, son of actor Rodolfo Sancho and investment analyst Silvia Bronchalo, was provisionally arrested when on August 3 he went to the Phangan police station to report the disappearance of his friend and was formally detained two days later, after confessing to the crime of 44 year old surgeon.

With less than three weeks left before the trial begins on a case that has generated high media interest, Daniel Sancho prepares his defense daily and assures that he trusts the courts of Thailand.

“I think justice will be done when I am finally heard,” said the young man, who still does not know what days he will testify in the trial and that he will do so with a Spanish interpreter.

Sancho will be represented by the Thai public defender Aprichat Srinuel and has the support of a legal team in Madrid led by the lawyer Marcos García Montes.

The Thai Prosecutor’s Office accuses him of three crimes: in addition to premeditated murder and concealment of the body, Sancho faces a charge of destroying the victim’s passport, which is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Arrieta’s family will appear at the trial as a private prosecution through the Spanish firm Ospina Abogados and a Thai legal team, who recently assured that the Prosecutor’s Office has more than 50 pieces of evidence that would prove that it was a premeditated murder, such as the knives that the accused bought the day before the events.

The oral trial at the Samui Provincial Court will be a long and intense process of at least 14 sessions in which some 50 witnesses will testify and the sentence could be handed down between four and eight weeks later.