Daniel Sancho, son of Spanish actor Rodolfo Sancho, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for murdering and dismembering Colombian plastic surgeon Edwin Arrieta Arteaga in a Thai resort in 2023. Photo: Somkeat Ruksaman/EPA-EFE
Aug. 29 (UPI) – Daniel Sancho, son of Spanish actor Rodolfo Sancho, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for the murder and dismemberment of Colombian plastic surgeon Edwin Arrieta Arteaga at a Thai resort in 2023.
Sancho was also ordered to pay $118,000 in restitution to the family of victim Arteaga. Sanchez was found guilty of premeditated murder, concealing a corpse and embezzling documents from another person in connection with the killing of Arrieta on the island of Koh Phangan off the southern coast of Thailand.
He pleaded guilty but claimed he killed Arrieta in self-defense and claimed he was Arrieta's “hostage.” He maintained the murder was not premeditated.
“The court considered that his confession to the murder was useful during the trial. Therefore, the court commuted the sentence to life imprisonment,” Colonel Paisan Sangthep of the Surat Thani provincial police told CNN.
“Before committing the murder, the defendant had purchased a knife, gloves, plastic bags, garbage bags, (a cleaning sponge), a cleaver and a saw.”
The original sentence was death, but was commuted to life imprisonment due to Sancho's confessions and other cooperation during the trial.
Sancho led police to seven different locations on the Thai island where he had disposed of Arrieta's body.
Sancho and Arrieta met online. According to a statement in Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Sancho claimed that Arrieta tried to rape him.
