Daniel Sanchosentenced to life in prison in Thailand for the premeditated murder of Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta, spent his first night in Surat Thani prison and is serving a period of quarantine due to covid-19.
Sancho is already in prison, to which He arrived in an armoured van On Friday afternoon, confirmed three employees of Surat Thani Central Prison (southern Thailand), located in a quiet area surrounded by coconut trees in the province of the same name.
According to one of the employees, Sancho fills the quarantine period “between 6 and 10 days” in prison due to covid-19, a common routine still in place in Thailand during which visits are normally only allowed by lawyers, but not by family members.
The Thai Department of Correctional Services and Surat Thani Prison Headquarters were unable to confirm this, as they are. closed on weekends.
Sancho already had to spend a ten-day quarantine period when he entered the country. Samui Prisonabout a hundred kilometers from Surat Thani, under provisional regime on August 7, 2023, five days after the crime, which occurred on the neighboring island of Phangan.
A Samui Provincial Court judge found Sancho guilty of premeditated murder Arrieta and sentenced him to life imprisonment, which can still be appealed in two Thai courts, including the Supreme Court.
Communication problems
A security guard at the prison, located at the foot of a green hill in a peaceful setting, warned of possible communication problems in the foreigners’ prison because of the predominance of Thai among the center’s officials.
As explained, Sancho, who entered in an armoured van, would have asked upon his arrival on Friday afternoon if “someone spoke English” and asked for an interpreter.
After the quarantine was over, the prison employee informed EFE that “it will be decided in which area it will be installed, because there are few foreignersThe majority are Burmese and Cambodians.
Contacted by EFEprison officer declined to specify in what regard on Friday. the area would be installed Sancho and they indicated that there were other foreign prisoners, also European.
Sancho’s transfer to Surat Thani prison was confirmed on Friday by multiple sources, including the prisoner himself during a a visit to Samui prison before being mobilized, in which he claimed that the change of center was “imminent.”
The 30-year-old Spaniard had to make a journey that included a boat trip of about two hours and a half and two road trips from the penitentiary on Samui Island to the port and from there to Surat Thani Prison on the mainland.
Although the Spaniard asked the judge on Thursday after hearing the decision to stay in Samui, a center considered “friendly” in Thailand and with a smaller number of inmates, this prison only admits those sentenced to terms of less than 15 years in prison.
Surat Thani prison, meanwhile, houses prisoners punishments from 15 years old up to the death penalty, has a high security module and two common areas for inmates, as well as a hospital area, among others.
THE Surat Thani Prison It suffers from “overcrowding” according to some reports from human rights organisations, and is about ten times more populated than Samui, with 4,730 male and 626 female prisoners, according to figures from the Department of Correctional Services.
In a sparsely populated area, with little traffic, few houses nearby and surrounded by cultivated fields, the prison has new facilities, inaugurated in February 2023approximately 15 kilometers east of Surat Thani city (over 600 kilometers south of Bangkok).
son of the actor Rodolfo Sancho and the investment analyst Silvia BronchaloDaniel Sancho initially confessed to the crime, but later and during the trial he claimed that the death of Arrieta, a Colombian plastic surgeon he had met on the Thai island of Phangan on the day of the events, was due to an accident.
