Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, a Spanish YouTube chef, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for a gruesome murder and dismemberment in Thailand.
The case was documented in a Spanish-language HBO documentary. Sancho is the son of prominent Spanish film and TV actor Rodolfo Sancho and Silvia Bronchalo, who has crew credits and is reported to have acted as well.
The judgement was announced in the Koh Samui Provincial Court and related to a case in which Sancho was accused of murdering Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, chopping up his body and disposing of the body parts. The two men were on holiday on Koh Panang, a nearby island known for its full moon rave parties.
The court initially sentenced Sancho to death for the “premeditated murder” of Arrieta, but it reduced the sentence to life imprisonment as he had cooperated with the court.
Sancho claimed that he and Arrieta had got into a fight after Arrieta had tried to sexually assault him. Sancho said Arrieta had hit his head on a bathtub and died.
While Sancho pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder, he acknowledged dismembering Arrieta’s body and scattering the body parts on land and at sea. He received a four-month prison sentence, reduced to two months. Additionally, he received a two-year jail sentence for destroying Arrieta’s passport, a charge which he denied.
The Associated Press agency reports that Thai police obtained surveillance video showing Sancho allegedly purchasing a knife, rubber gloves, garbage bags and cleaning solutions at a convenience store before Arrieta’s death. The prosecutors said that supported the charge of premeditated murder.
“I am sorry that a life has been lost and that parents have lost a son,” said Sancho in his closing remarks to the court, according to the Spanish-language El Pais newspaper. “I am sorry that his family was not able to bury him properly. I’m sorry for what I did after the death.”
Both of his parents were in court on Thursday to hear the verdict.
Source Agencies
