A brutal crime, with a tortured body thrown away to make the evidence, however found, disappear. Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, a member of a famous Spanish acting family and a YouTube celebrity chef, has been found guilty of premeditated murder by a Thai court. A case that has shocked Spanish public opinion due to the seriousness of the murder.
The thirty-year-old was in fact convicted of having killed Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, a 44-year-old plastic surgeon originally from Colombia, murder which is said to have occurred when both were on holiday on the Thai island of Koh Phangan in August last year.
The case has aroused enormous interest in Spain also because the defendant’s father, Rodolfo Sancho, is a very well-known actor: Dozens of Spanish journalists flew in to witness the trial.
Sancho confessed to killing the 44-year-old doctor in self-defense and hiding his body, but denied destroying the Colombian’s passport. The trial found that Sancho cut Arrieta’s body into pieces and He hid the parts in plastic bags before distributing them around Koh Phangan.
The Koh Samui Provincial Court had previously issued a death sentence for Sancho, but in his sentence he commuted it to life in prison because of his cooperation during the trial, according to the police.
Bussakorn Kaewleeled, a lawyer for the victim’s family, said he was pleased with the outcome. “We are pleased because he will be sentenced to life in prison,” he told reporters outside the courthouse. Although Thailand still has the death penalty for some crimes, including premeditated murder, it rarely carries out executions. The last one was carried out in 2018.
Arrieta’s family said before the verdict that they were in favor of a life sentence. “Let’s leave him in Thailand so he can take his time, all the time God gives him to live, to think about what he did,” said Darling Arrieta, the victim’s sister, in a documentary made by HBO on the case. “He didn’t just tear apart my brother, he tear apart a family,” she said.
The YouTube chef’s defense has however announced that it will appeal the sentence. “We will fight, we will continue to fight in court,” he declared.
Daniel Sancho and Edwin Arrieta met on Instagram in 2022, and then met in person in Thailand. The facts date back to a year ago, when the Spanish chef spent the holidays with his doctor friend in a bungalow on the Thai island of Koh Phegan. The defense supported the theory of self-defense, but the prosecution proved the evidence against him, also thanks to the images recorded by cameras that filmed the chef while he was buying knives, a saw and cleaning products used in the crime in a supermarket.
The chef also confessed to the murder: “I am guilty, but I was Edwin’s hostage. He kept me as if kidnapped in a glass cage. He was obsessed with me,” he said, before retracting.
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