The murder case of the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta was one of the most talked about in the media in Spain in 2023. The cook Daniel Sancho was the main and only suspect in the gruesome crime from the moment of his confession, ensuring that he had dismembered him . However, in recent months the investigation by police forces in Thailand has not been without controversy.
In addition to the accusations that Sancho’s defense dropped at the beginning of the month, The Case now points to an even more serious incident. According to this and other local and Thai media, the murder weapon had disappeared without a trace a few weeks before the trial began. A strange fact, taking into account that Sancho himself pointed out the use of said weapon and where he deposited it after dismembering Arrieta.
During this week, the confidentiality of the summary of the case has been lifted and it has been possible to access different instances that remained to be discovered, among them Sancho’s first confession, which according to his lawyers would have been made under the pretext of granting him a false extradition of back to Spain. In his conversation with police officers, the chef described the weapon as a kitchen knife that was not sharp enough.
“It is a Santoku knife that a chef uses to cut meat. After the incident I put it in the sink. It belongs to Bougain Villa. I used it to cut the bags while I threw the body parts into the sea,” explained the detainee. The summary also indicates that this knife was not present at the crime scene, among the objects that will be exhibited during the trial. Its whereabouts after he left it in the sink is a mystery.
This mystery or alleged negligence adds to the many that the accused’s lawyers threw at the investigators in the Asian country. The press conference of the Chippirrás-Balfagón law firm with Marcos García Montes left a host of accusations against the Thai police, many of them still pending resolution. Not only in the matter of the blackmailed extradition, but also in the previous efforts.
“Daniel never confessed that he had killed Edwin Arrieta. We have the evidence and I can assure you. He only confessed, and that’s why he collaborated, that he had dismembered him. They assigned him a court-appointed lawyer who did not have a tender, they took him wherever they wanted without legal assistance, they did not read him his rights and they did a reconstruction of the events in which the police told him what to say and do. This is against all fundamental rights” explained Carmen Bafalgón.
