A Thai court docket will sentence Thursday a Spanish movie star’s son charged with murdering and dismembering a Colombian plastic surgeon he met on-line.
The case in opposition to Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, the 30-year-old son of actor Rodolfo Sancho, has generated huge curiosity in his residence nation, with scores of Spanish reporters flying in for the trial.
The youthful Sancho, a chef with a YouTube channel, is accused of murdering and dismembering Edwin Arrieta Arteaga on the vacationer island of Koh Pha Ngan final yr.
His trial on prices of premeditated homicide, hiding a physique and destroying paperwork was held in April on close by Koh Samui, one other vacationer hotspot recognized for its turquoise waters and rave events.
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Sancho denies premeditated homicide, however stays in detention after admitting he killed Arrieta, 44, in what he says was self-defense.
He has additionally admitted hiding the physique, however denies destroying the Colombian’s passport.
The 2 had agreed to fulfill up after attending to know one another on-line.
The trial heard that Sancho had positioned elements of Arrieta’s physique in plastic luggage and distributed them round Koh Pha Ngan. Sancho led police to seven websites, the place he allegedly disposed of the sufferer’s dismembered physique in plastic luggage, BBC Information reported.
Although his crimes are punishable by the demise penalty, Arrieta’s household has mentioned they would favor life in jail.
“Let him be left in Thailand so he can take time, on a regular basis that God offers him to reside, to consider what he did,” Darling Arrieta, the sufferer’s sister, mentioned in an HBO documentary in regards to the case.
“He not solely dismembered my brother, he dismembered a household.”
Sancho’s father mentioned in the identical documentary that Arrieta had threatened his son, after which “there was a combat, and on this combat there was an accident.”
Based on IMDB, Rodolfo Sancho has dozens of movie and TV credit to his title and starred in “El Ministerio del Tiempo” (“The Ministry of Time”).
“He completed him off”
The protection maintains that Sancho acted in authentic self-defense after Arrieta tried to pressure him to have intercourse. Sancho informed Spanish information company EFE he had been a “hostage” to the sufferer, who was obsessive about him, BBC Information reported.
“He tried to rape me, and we fought,” Sancho mentioned in an announcement quoted by the Spanish day by day El Mundo.
Based on the paper, Sancho mentioned he did not instantly inform the police of Arrieta’s demise as a result of he was in shock, and since it was all “an accident.”
However a lawyer for the sufferer’s household, Juan Gonzalo Ospina, mentioned in a latest interview with El Mundo that Sancho was dwelling a “false actuality.”
“He continues to disclaim accountability for what he did,” he mentioned.
Photograph by JOSE PERDOMO/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
The Thai police, he added, “have executed a commendable job” reconstructing the crime and discovering proof.
“When Sancho went to report the disappearance of Edwin Arrieta in search of an alibi, they already knew the creator of the crime was him,” he mentioned.
Ospina mentioned it was confirmed on the trial in April that Sancho had purchased knives, plastic luggage and cleansing provides forward of the crime, and stored them within the room the place the killing passed off.
“That is indeniable,” he added.
He mentioned Sancho acknowledged at trial that Arrieta went into convulsions after he hit him.
“In his assertion he admitted that afterwards, he completed him off. That’s to say, he murdered him,” he added.
Nonetheless, a lawyer for Sancho’s household, Carmen Balfagon, informed the Spanish information program Cronica that they have been “very optimistic, as a result of within the trial we demonstrated that there was no premeditation.”
DAILYNEWS by way of Reuters
Koh Pha Ngan is famed for white sandy seashores and attracts hundreds of backpackers to its notoriously wild “full moon” events.
In 2014, one other vacationer island Koh Tao was rocked by the double homicide of two younger British backpackers. Two Burmese nationals are serving sentences of life imprisonment for the murders, however rights teams have accused Thai authorities of utilizing the boys as scapegoats.
