The Thai justice yesterday decreed provisional imprisonment for Daniel Sancho Bronchal for the murder and dismemberment of the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta Arteaga on the tourist island of Koh Phangan. This was confirmed by RTVE on Monday after it was decreed by the judge of the provincial court of the neighboring island of Koh Samui, where the detainee was escorted on Monday morning.
Sancho, 29, will be in the island’s prison at least until the trial begins. From the moment of his imprisonment, Sancho will be subjected to a ten-day isolation per covid protocol, a period during which he will only be able to be visited by his legal representative.
When the protocol ends, the accused will be awaiting trial, an undetermined date for which he could wait weeks or months. Meanwhile, Thai police still have another nine weeks to wrap up the investigation. Sancho’s lawyers had assured that they would request provisional release for the young man, but it would have been denied by the judge.
According to the Bangkok Post, the police assert that the reason for the crime was that Arrieta had threatened and blackmailed him with damaging the reputation of his family in Spain, as Sancho would have declared to the authorities.
Before Sancho’s transfer yesterday to Koh Samui to be put on trial, he was taken to seven places on the island of Koh Phangan on Sunday to reconstruct the crime. Among these, the beach where he would have thrown bags with some parts of Arrieta’s corpse, which according to the police was dismembered into 14 sections.
The detainee admitted his guilt to the Efe agency on Sunday and the day before he did the same during an interrogation with the Thai police.
In statements to the news agency, he assured that the reason for the crime was that he felt hostage to Arrieta, 44 years old. “I’m guilty of it, but I was Edwin’s hostage. He held me hostage. It was a crystal cage, but it was a cage. It made me destroy the relationship with my girlfriend, it forced me to do things I would never have done”, he assured.
According to the chronology studied by the local media, Daniel Sancho arrived in Thailand on July 30, and on the island of Koh Phangan on August 1. The surgeon joined him a day later. On the night of their meeting, a strong argument took place between them that ended with the Colombian dead in the hotel room they shared. After that, Sancho reported a day later, on the night of Thursday, August 3, the disappearance of the Colombian at the police station in Koh Phangan and began to be questioned as a suspect on Friday.
The speed with which the investigation has taken place is not the only surprising fact about the circumstances of the arrest of the son of the actor Rodolfo Sancho, but also that while he was detained by the police he was able to speak by telephone with The program of verano (Telecinco) and offered an incredible story. “The police are treating me very well, so you can get an idea, I’m having dinner with them at the best hotel on the island, an Anantara,” he revealed.
The Thai Penal Code provides for the maximum penalty of death for murder, although, if imposed, it is usually commuted to life imprisonment.
