On the Thai island of Koh Samui, where tourism coexists with one of the most high-profile Spanish court cases in recent years, a long-awaited resolution arrived this Friday. Behind closed doors, far from the cameras that for months followed every movement of the case, the court announced the appeal ruling: Thailand dismissed the appeal and maintained Daniel Sancho's life sentence for the premeditated murder of Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta.
The convicted person was not physically present in the Samui Provincial Court room. Sancho followed the hearing by videoconference from Surat Thani prison, one of the largest prisons in southern Thailand, where he was transferred after the first instance sentence. The Thai legal representatives of both parties did attend: Aphichat Srinuel and Alice Keartjareanlap for the Spaniard's defense; Metapon Suwancharen and Nattha Jongratwanin on behalf of the victim's family.
The decision confirms, for now, the sentence handed down on August 29, 2024. The Court found Sancho guilty of the premeditated murder of Arrieta, which occurred on August 2, 2023 on the neighboring island of Koh Phangan. Although this crime carries the death penalty in Thailand, the judges then took into account the defendant's initial confession as a mitigating factor and reduced the punishment to life imprisonment. They also found him guilty of dismembering and hiding the body.
Sancho's defense had presented its appeal in March 2025. Its central thesis was to dismantle premeditation and maintain that Arrieta's death occurred accidentally during a fight. Among their requests was the holding of a new hearing or even the repetition of the trial to incorporate new witnesses.
The family of the Colombian surgeon, on the contrary, appealed in December 2024, considering that the evidence justified increasing the sentence to the death penalty and demanding compensation greater than the 4.42 million bats, approximately 117,000 euros, initially set. After hearing the ruling on the appeals, the Arrieta family's legal team in Thailand revealed to Efe that they will not appeal again.
Neither side has managed to change the core of the ruling. The ruling had previously been prepared by the Phuket Court of Appeal and sent to Samui in early September. In the Thai system, the court that tried the case in the first instance is responsible for officially communicating the resolution to the parties, even if the decision comes from the higher court.
The Sancho case began as a story of two lovers who had met on Instagram in 2022 and ended up becoming a criminal chronicle followed from Spain, Colombia and Thailand. The media impact was multiplied by the identity of the accused, son of actor Rodolfo Sancho and grandson of Sancho Gracia, but also by the details of the crime, which occurred on an island associated with backpacker tourism, full moon parties and idyllic beaches.
This Friday's resolution, however, does not yet close the procedure. Both Sancho's defense and Arrieta's family retain the possibility of presenting a new appeal to the Thai Supreme Court. Each party has up to two appeals: this first, already resolved, and another possible before the highest judicial instance in the country. Until this avenue is exhausted or the parties give up appealing, the sentence will not be final.
That firmness is key for the next horizon of the case: Sancho's eventual transfer to Spain. When there is a final sentence, his defense could initiate the procedures to request that he serve the rest of the sentence in a Spanish prison, under the protection of the prisoner transfer agreement existing between both countries. It would not be an automatic or immediate transfer: it would depend on the Thai authorities, the prison terms and the applicable legal requirements.
For now, Daniel Sancho will remain in Surat Thani. Thousands of kilometers away, Edwin Arrieta's family maintains their judicial and moral battle to have the sentence stiffened. And in Thailand, where justice advances with its own times and discreet ceremonies, the case enters a new wait: that of the possible appeal to the Supreme Court, the last door before the sentence is definitively written.
