The trial of Daniel Sancho is going to be long. The two judges in the courtroom where the case is being heard, in the Samui Provincial Court, have suspended this Thursday’s session after the lunch break and the statements will not resume until next Tuesday. The person accused of the murder and dismemberment of plastic surgeon Edwin Arrieta will not testify until Wednesday, May 1, which is not a holiday in the Thai administration.
Today’s session, Thursday, with which the parade of defense witnesses began, included the intervention of two Immigration police officers in the morning. Unexpectedly and by decision of the magistrates, since it was expected that it would be Daniel Sancho himself who would sit
on the bench. The agents in question were the ones who, once there were well-founded suspicions that Sancho had something to do with the disappearance of his Colombian friend, reported by himself, canceled his visa for reasons that were not relevant. Although his decision later proved correct to avoid the risk of escape, the young Spaniard’s defense argues that it was an “illegal detention.”
Although three more agents should have intervened this Thursday afternoon, the magistrates have decided to suspend the session due to the high temperature in the room. This is due to an electrical breakdown that has been going on since the previous day and that forces the use of generators, which are not enough to operate the air conditioning and some other systems. On Tuesday the session will resume with the aforementioned police officers and, if time allows, with the statement of the actor Rodolfo Sancho, father of Daniel Sancho. In any case, the only accused will testify on Wednesday, starting in the morning, and may take up the entire day, at the request of his public defender. He has acknowledged that the trial could extend somewhat beyond May 3, the date initially scheduled. Once the case is heard for sentencing, the verdict could be handed down by the two magistrates “between four and six weeks later,” in the opinion of one of the prosecution lawyers hired by Juan Gonzalo Ospina’s law firm.
The Spanish-Colombian lawyer, by the way, went to the airport already in the morning, after the judges’ apparent veto of his permanence in the courtroom. The day before he had been able to set foot on it again, but only as a deponent, summoned by the prosecution lawyers hired by his own law firm. Only lawyers registered in Thailand can practice in the country, without forgetting that the trial basically takes place in Thai.
According to sources close to the case, Daniel Sancho would not have intervened in today’s session either, probably well advised, after having started the trial with interpellations, displaying a defiant attitude in front of the prosecution witnesses, poorly received in Thailand.
