Next Monday, November 13 The judicial procedure on the murder of Edwin Arrieta will begin. In fact, his family will be present at the trial in Thailand to the young Spaniard Daniel Sancho in which he will adhere to the Prosecutor’s accusation for the crime of the Colombian surgeon last August 2 on the island of Phangan, where he was murdered and dismembered. The Thai judge and prosecutor are expected to inform Daniel Sancho, who has been in provisional detention since August 7, the accusation against him.

This was reported this Friday at a press conference held in Madrid. the lawyers of the Arrieta family in Spain, Juan Gonzalo Ospina and Beatriz Uriarte, and by videoconference from Colombia the lawyer Adriana Behaine and from Thailand Yuthana Promsin and Julien Iwanicki Govrich. Gonzalo Ospina has explained that the family has already managed to formalize his appearance in the case. This will allow their lawyers to access the summary and be present at the oral hearing scheduled for Monday.

Ospina has added that if at said hearing Sancho recognizes the facts, his sentence would be reduced in such a way that he could go from a possible death penalty to life imprisonment or many years in prison, but if he does not confess, a procedure would begin that would culminate in a trial possibly in March of next year in which the family’s lawyers will be able to ask questions and propose that the victim’s parents testify. The lawyers have clarified that Edwin Arrieta’s relatives will not attend the hearing on the 13th and that if a trial is held next year they will ask that the victim’s parents testify by videoconference given his advanced age and the difficulty of a trip from Colombia to Thailand.

The family talks about Sancho’s “lack of empathy”

Gonzalo Ospina has indicated that the family will adhere to the request sentence carried out by the Thai prosecutor and will claim the corresponding compensation taking into account the precarious situation in which he has been left since his main income came from his activity as the victim’s surgeon. In any case, he has expressed the “lack of empathy” of Sancho and his family since they have not asked for forgiveness or their desire for any type of compensation. The lawyer has assured that the relatives of Edwin Arrieta ““They do not want revenge, but rather that the full weight of the law falls.”and that due to their religious convictions they are not in favor of the death penalty although they will respect the decision of the Thai Justice.

He estimates, however, that if Sancho does not ask for forgiveness, he finds it difficult for the family to accept the possibility that he would finish serving the sentence imposed on him in Thailand in Spain. “It has been a very sad and hard loss for a humble and hard-working family that has been overwhelmed by everything that this procedure has entailed,” he noted. In this regard, the Colombian lawyer Adriana Behaine Pacheco has commented that “the family is very emotionally affected“, both Edwin’s parents, his brothers and his son, and for them it is important that the case does not go unpunished and that they can soon repatriate his remains to give them a Christian burial.”

Thai lawyers, for their part, have commented that they foresee a death sentence although they have recalled that You can ask for forgiveness from the king of Thailand to avoid it or to replace it with life imprisonment, but provided that many years had passed in prison. The Thai Prosecutor’s Office delivered a report to the court last month in which it accuses Daniel Sancho, son and grandson of actors Rodolfo Sancho and Sancho Gracia, respectively, of premeditated murder and concealment of Arrieta’s body.