YouTube chef Daniel Sancho sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in Thailand | International

A Thai court has sentenced Spanish national Daniel Sancho to life imprisonment for the murder of Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta, whose remains were found on the holiday island of Koh Phangan in early August 2023. Both men had spent a few days on the island coinciding with the full moon festival, which attracts travelers from all over the world to nightly raves. Sancho is known as a YouTube chef and is the son of Spanish actors Rodolfo Sancho and Silvia Bronchalo, both of whom were present at the court hearing in Bangkok on Thursday.

The court found Sancho, 30, guilty of premeditated murder, concealing or damaging a corpse and destroying another person's documents (the victim's passport). Pol Col Paisan Sangthep, deputy commander of the Surat Thani provincial police, told the Associated Press that the court had initially imposed a death sentence but commuted it to life imprisonment due to Sancho's cooperation during the trial.

Sancho was also ordered to pay around 106,000 euros (4 million baht) to the victim's relatives who were financially dependent on the 44-year-old plastic surgeon. The court's decision can still be appealed, a process that legal sources said could take up to a year. “It's time to keep fighting,” said Rodolfo Sancho, Daniel's father, as he left the Koh Samui provincial court.

After his arrest, Sancho initially confessed to the crime, but later changed his version of events, claiming that Arrieta accidentally hit his head on a bathtub when he fell after a scuffle between the two men. Sancho claimed that Arrieta tried to sexually assault him.

Sancho had pleaded not guilty to the charge of premeditated murder, but admitted to dismembering the victim's body and disposing of the parts on land and at sea. The case came to light when garbage collectors found what the Bangkok Post newspaper described as a sawn-off pelvis and intestines weighing about 5 kilograms in a fertilizer bag at a landfill.

Shortly thereafter, Sancho reported Arrieta missing to police. Police then gathered evidence that linked the two men and led to their arrest and questioning of him.

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