BANGKOK (AP) — A Thai court on Thursday found Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, a member of a famous Spanish acting family, guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced him to life in prison. The victim was also dismembered as part of the sensational proceedings.
The Koh Samui provincial court had initially imposed the death penalty on Sancho, but commuted it to life imprisonment due to his cooperation during the trial, said police colonel Paisan Sangthep, deputy commander of the Surat Thani provincial police, who attended the hearing.
Sancho, a 30-year-old chef with a YouTube channel, had been accused of murdering Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, a 44-year-old plastic surgeon from Colombia, while both were vacationing on the Thai resort island. Koh Pha Ngan in August last year.
The island is famous for its monthly “full moon” beach parties, which attract travelers from all over the world to the nightly raves.
The convicted man is the son of Rodolfo Sancho Aguirre, a well-known Spanish actor, and Silvia Bronchalo, who was also an actress. Both parents are 49 years old and attended the court hearing on Thursday.
The court also ordered Sancho to pay the victim's family more than 4.2 million baht ($125,000) in compensation. Lawyers representing the family in the trial had demanded 30 million baht ($882,000), Spanish news agency EFE reported.
EFE also quoted Sancho's father, Rodolfo, as telling the media after the verdict that he intended to “keep fighting, keep fighting”.
During his trial on the island of Samui, Daniel Sancho claimed that he got into an argument with Arrieta because the latter had tried to sexually assault him. He said that during the scuffle, Arrieta fell and hit his head against a bathtub, lost consciousness and then died.
He had pleaded not guilty to the charge of premeditated murder.
Sancho admitted to dismembering the victim's body and disposing of the parts on land and at sea. He received a four-month prison sentence for the charge of concealing or damaging a corpse, which was reduced to two months due to the confession, Paisan said.
He had also pleaded not guilty to the destruction of someone else's documents – the victim's passport – and was sentenced to two years in prison for this.
The details of the case – a violent death on a holiday island, the celebrity connections and the lurid details – attracted widespread attention in the Spanish media, and HBO produced a Spanish-language documentary about the events.
The case came to light when garbage collectors found a sawed-off pelvis and intestines weighing about five kilograms in a fertilizer bag at a garbage dump, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported.
Shortly thereafter, Sancho reported Arrieta missing to the police, and the police collected evidence that linked the two men and arrest and interrogate him.
The police constructed a story by telling the press that Sancho confessed to the murder and said he planned it because Arrieta had threatened to embarrass him and his family by revealing their alleged sexual relationship.
Sancho, through his father and his lawyers, said this was a distorted version of his statements to the police and denied having had a sexual relationship with Arrieta.
Police obtained surveillance video showing Sancho allegedly buying a knife, rubber gloves, garbage bags and cleaning supplies at a supermarket before Arrieta's death, which prosecutors said bolstered the premeditated murder charge.
In his closing argument at the start of the trial, Sancho told the court that he regretted his actions, Spanish newspaper El País reported.
“I'm sorry that a life was lost and that parents lost a son,” Sancho said. “I'm sorry that his family couldn't give him a dignified burial. I'm sorry for what I did after he died.”
Under certain conditions, under an agreement between Thailand and Spain, Sancho can apply for his repatriation to serve the remainder of his sentence in his homeland after several years in prison in Thailand.
Among the few Spanish citizens in Thai prisons is another man who was convicted of premeditated murder and dismemberment of his victim.
Artur Segarra Princep was convicted of the 2016 murder of fellow Spaniard David Bernat. Police suspect Segarra robbed the victim, whom he allegedly knew. The body was kept in a freezer in Segarra's Bangkok apartment until parts of it were thrown into Thailand's Chao Phraya River.
Be Death sentence 2017 was commuted to life imprisonment by Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn in 2020.
