Koh Samui, Thailand, Aug 8 (EFE).- A Spanish suspect in the death and dismemberment of a Colombian doctor in Thailand entered a 10-day quarantine period in prison Tuesday after contracting Covid-19.
Daniel Sancho is the only suspect in the death last week of Edwin Arrieta on the holiday island on Koh Phangan, from which he was transferred Monday to the neighboring island of Koh Samui, where he’s under preventive detention pending trial.
Sources close to the case said he is not in the infirmary but an internal division with “better” cells and fewer prisoners.
Sancho was visited Tuesday in prison by a lawyer hired by his family – which includes his father and actor Rodolfo Sancho – having been represented by public defenders until Monday.
“I think he is relaxed. He knows what he did (…) He wants to plan how to live (in prison),” the lawyer told the media after arriving at the prison.
He met Sancho for about an hour and a half and will be able to visit him regularly, since he can only meet lawyers during isolation.
“There are many foreign prisoners (in the prison), he can find someone to talk to better than in other jails where there are only Thai people,” the lawyer added. The prison houses at least one other Spanish prisoner, EFE was told.
Sancho has been in this jail since Monday, when a judge from the Koh Samui provincial court ordered provisional detention for him pending trial, after presenting charges of premeditated murder and concealment of evidence of a crime.
The man could be transferred to a maximum security prison in Bangkok in the future.
The Thai penal code states that murder can carry the death penalty, although this is usually later commuted to life imprisonment.
The prosecutor’s office said Tuesday that police now have 84 days to complete a first report of the investigation, which they will deliver to the prosecutor, from when the trial could begin.
The suspect allegedly confessed to the murder and dismemberment of Arrieta on Saturday at the Koh Phangan police station, the tourist island near Koh Samui where the incident occurred.
Authorities are yet to recover all of Arrieta’s remains, Koh Phangan police said.
Sancho, who arrived on Koh Phangan on Aug. 1, met on Wednesday with Arrieta, whom he had known for some time.
Sancho himself reported the victim’s disappearance Thursday night and was questioned as a suspect Friday before being arrested Saturday. EFE
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