The trial of Daniel Sancho will end this Thursday in a tragicomic way with a bogeyman in the spotlight. It will not be a metaphor for the severed head of surgeon Edwin Arrieta, but rather that Thai bogeyman will represent himself.
Because the last witness in the exhausting trial of Daniel Sancho is nothing less than a chef. A chef of undisclosed nationality who will try to convince the judge of the culinary use of the saw.
The young Spaniard, as is known, bought one, before dismembering his Colombian friend or lover, Edwin Arrieta. But this circumstance is irrelevant to his defense, which maintains that Sancho, like any tourist on the crazy island of Phangan, bought saws and knives for a noble cause, even though he later used them for what he used them for. In his case, with the aim of uploading cooking videos to YouTube.
The same reason, in short, why he booked the most secluded bungalow at Bougain Villas, in Koh Phangan, already having another one.
These challenges to reason were exploited this Wednesday by the prosecution and the prosecution lawyers, although without drawing blood. Although Sancho would have put up with it during the morning interrogation, in the afternoon, in a less tense context, he burst into tears, according to some voices. Others deny it.
As is known, the trial of Sancho Gracia’s grandson is taking place behind closed doors, without cameras or journalists in the room and an information blockade.
This Wednesday’s session was exhausting, since it lasted ten hours and, until late in the afternoon, it was believed that it was going to be the last. There was only time to listen to the intervention of a doctor and a forensic psychologist, Manuel Carrillo and Pedro Mateo, who had arrived from Spain to try to prove that the contusion on the plastic surgeon’s skull was compatible with an accident, as Sancho has recently maintained.
An attempt was also made to justify the panic that prevented Daniel Sancho from reviving his bed partner or seeking help, when he had the opportunity to do so. Opting instead to desecrate his corpse, dismembering it and scattering it, before reporting his strange disappearance at the police station, in the face of desperate messages, from Colombia, from the deceased’s sister.
Along with these impeccable professionals, a much darker character from a North American evangelical organization has appeared in Samui, with the intention of revealing the supposed shady side of Edwin Arrieta, who can no longer defend himself. As if in Samui the victim was being judged, instead of the perpetrator.
The judge has not accepted this “witness” that came out of nowhere, with arguments that have nothing to do with the case and that he intended to declare anonymously that Arrieta was “a monster”, with dubious sources of income.
Be that as it may, after four weeks, the trial of Daniel Sancho will be heard this Thursday for sentencing. Among the lawyers on both benches, the expressions are much more relaxed since this Wednesday. The same trust is observed in Rodolfo Sancho, father of the accused, and his legal team. Premeditation marks the difference in Thailand between a heavy sentence and the death penalty.
Someone is going to come out disappointed. But it will not be this Thursday – when Daniel Sancho has the opportunity to make a last plea – but on the day – which will be known this Thursday – when the sentence is handed down, next month.
The accusation warns that if justice is not done for the Arrieta family, they will appeal to the Supreme Court, and the Sancho case will continue to roll and roll.
