The Spaniard Daniel Sancho, confessed dismemberer of the Colombian Edwin Arrieta, once again pleaded not guilty to the latter's death at the beginning of his trial in Thailand.
“We have not seen repentance,” the representative of the victim's family, Juan Gonzalo Ospina, summarized this Tuesday at the end of a session of about ten hours, behind closed doors.
The accused's father, actor Rodolfo Sancho, entered and left like an arrow, without making any statements. Nor did he have much margin, given the threats made by the judge to persecute anyone who broke the confidentiality – imposed by himself – on what was being discussed in the courtroom.
On the other hand, Daniel's mother, Silvia Bronchalo, also in Koh Samui, was unwell yesterday and did not come.
After the reading of the charges, including premeditated murder, the accused clung to the version given during the hearing, in which he retracted his initial confession.
His lawyers have shown understanding with the gagging imposed by the judge, with total contempt for Spanish journalists arriving from China or Spain, in addition to Bangkok itself, whose entry to the court has been banned, like that of any other informant. Mobile phones, cameras and recorders have also been prohibited in this one.
Even the name of the judge has been declared confidential.
After Daniel Sancho rejected two of the three charges, the round of statements by four prosecution witnesses began, whom Sancho would have interrupted and questioned on several occasions. Among them, the Burmese woman who found the surgeon's remains in a landfill and the Thai woman who rented him the motorcycle as soon as she landed in Phangan.
Among the key witnesses in the coming days is the owner of the bungalows where the carnage took place or the woman who sold Sancho the kayak from which she threw several parts of the victim's body into the sea.
None of the aforementioned restrictions help the transparency of the trial or the credibility of the sentence and instead feed the worst fears, in a country that has embarked on a crusade against corruption every few years, without appreciable improvements.
However, Ospina believes that what the judge is looking for is "that there be no parallel trial." The superior of the Jesuits in Thailand, Miguel Garaizábal, with decades of assisting prisoners, says he does not remember anything similar, although he calls for trust in Thai justice.
Sancho's defense maintains that Arrieta died after hitting himself during a fight with Sancho, who had acted "in self-defense." While the prosecutor intends to prove that it was a premeditated murder.
Edwin Arrieta was dismembered by his friend, lover or supporter, Daniel Sancho – 15 years younger – on August 2nd in one of the bungalows on the bucolic Salad beach, in Phangan.
The trial is also being followed with great expectation in Lorica, Arrieta's hometown and where his father, Leobaldo – who fixed transistors – and his mother, Marcela, who was a teacher, continue to live. Both say they hope “that justice acts according to law,” according to what a journalist friend of the family told La Vanguardia.
Edwin Arrieta, of humble origins, had achieved a very comfortable social position as a plastic surgeon with consultations in very wealthy neighborhoods of Santiago de Chile and Montería, the epicenter of the Colombian livestock oligarchy. Thanks to his talent and work, he rubbed shoulders with senators and ladies of high society, clients or not. Single and without children, in his town they clarify that he did not have a double life, but rather “he had a life in Colombia and another outside of Colombia.”
At 29 years old, Daniel Sancho, with dabbles in the networks, tennis and restaurants, was still looking for his place in the world, until the world found him – him, his knives and his garbage bags – in the paradise island of Phangan.
