Daniel Sancho maintains life sentence for murder of Edwin Arrieta in Thailand
The Samui Provincial Court rejected the Spanish man's appeal and upheld the conviction for premeditated murder of the Colombian doctor.
Thai court upholds life sentence for Daniel Sancho
The Samui Provincial Court in Thailand dismissed on Friday the appeals presented by Daniel Sancho's defence and upheld the life sentence for the murder of Colombian doctor Edwin Arrieta, according to reporting by semana.com.
The ruling was emphatic: "The conviction of the defendant for premeditated murder is upheld, as well as for the crimes related to concealment and dismemberment of the corpse and destruction of the victim's passport," the court stated in its ruling.
Sancho, son of Spanish actor Rodolfo Sancho, connected to the hearing by videoconference from Surat Thani prison, where he has been held since committing the crime on 2 August 2023. The other parties involved in the case were present in the courtroom.
In March 2025, the defence had presented the appeal requesting, among other things, a retrial with new witnesses, and arguing that Arrieta's death was an accident. The court explicitly rejected that theory.
The judicial body recalled that during the proceedings it was demonstrated that Sancho acquired knives, a saw, a machete, bags and other materials to conceal the crime. "Therefore, the court concluded that it was a premeditated murder," it stated, and also ruled out the possibility of incorporating new evidence into the case file.
The court also recalled that in the first-instance sentence the sentence had already been reduced, given that the death penalty had initially been contemplated.
Arrieta's family, through their legal representatives, had demanded compensation greater than the 4.42 million baht set at first instance. The court did not accede to that request and maintained the original amount.
The Spanish defendant's defence team is now studying what the next legal step will be, with the aim of attempting to reduce the sentence and preventing Sancho from spending the rest of his life in prison.
Source: Google News CO — Crime