Daniel Sancho unexpectedly became one of the most prominent names in the chronicle of events in 2023. The Spanish chef surrendered to the Thai authorities last summer, after confessing to the murder and dismemberment of an acquaintance there, the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta. Since then, the investigation has been slow and costly, advancing along paths that have led the accused’s lawyers to speak out.
The Chippirrás-Balfagón firm, together with the lawyer Marcos García Montes, held their first press conference this Friday afternoon since last August, and they did so by denouncing serious irregularities in the process that brought Sancho to trial. According to reports, the Thai police had invented a false deportation to Spain in 48 hours in exchange for the murder confession. An act that would have been carried out by an agent with a very particular name: James Bond.
“What we are clear about and we come to report today is that the Police deceived Daniel with a deportation order that did not exist. That served to detain him when it is not possible, it is illegal, much less put him in a cell. That’s why he agrees and declares from minute one what had happened. He gets to sign a deportation order, but deportation orders in Thailand are signed by the interior minister, not the police. It is a very serious issue,” explained Carmen Bafalgón.
The lawyer has shown the media present at the firm a page with two photographs, showing the moment in which Sancho supposedly signed this false agreement. “Daniel never confessed that he had killed Edwin Arrieta. We have the evidence and I can assure you. He only confessed, and that is why he collaborated, that he had dismembered him,” they explained, going so far as to assure that the agent with whom he signed said agreement would not even be a police officer.
“They tell him to testify in front of him and that person was a police officer. He was a mere actor,” they explained about the person whose name strikingly coincides with the secret agent created by Ian Fleming. A peculiarity of the country, born during the era of the Kingdom of Sukhothai in the 13th century, which would end up becoming the creation of informal names or nicknames. Another striking case within the police force that covers the case is that of his number two, Big Smoke.
Back to the lawyers’ accusations, Sancho’s legal team considers that countless rights of their client have been violated, and that the efforts have been terrible: “They assigned him a public defender who had no 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.”
