Daniel Sancho could not testify at his trial due to an electrical failure in the court

The trial in Thailand against the Spanish Daniel Sancho, accused of the premeditated murder of the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta, was postponed until next Tuesday, April 30 due to a power outage that affects the court, as confirmed this Thursday by several sources to EFE.

In this Thursday’s session, which began around 10:00 in the morning at the Samui Provincial Court and lasted about four hours, Two police officers called by the defense testified, but not the accused nor his father, the actor Rodolfo Sancho, as planned.

A power outage caused by the explosion of a transformer in the area left the court without electricity since Wednesday, so the air conditioning in the courtroom does not work, causing suffocating heatas described to EFE by several of the attendees.

This same problem meant that the afternoon session had to be suspended the day before, as happened this Thursday, and has meant that three police officers called by the defense have not been able to testify.

The trial will resume next Tuesday, April 30, and then the three police officers are expected to testify and after them they will begin to do so. Daniel Sancho, whose statement could last until the next day.

Thailand is experiencing a heat wave these days, with temperatures of up to 44 degrees, which has caused the authorities to issue an alert throughout the country.

“This postponement could cause the trial to be prolonged, because the defense only has four sessions left to accommodate our witnesses in each one,” Sancho’s lawyer, Apirchat Srinual, told EFE.

The defense had requested the postponement of the statement scheduled for this Thursday by Daniel Sancho because the appropriate conditions were not met due to the electricity cuts.

In this Thursday’s session, two immigration police officers testified that they revoked Sancho’s visa before being formally detained on the nearby island of Phangan, where the alleged crime took place on August 2.

The oral trial against the young Spaniard is being held behind closed doors and with strong restrictions to report on the details of what has been happening in the courtroom since April 9.

This Wednesday the turn of the witnesses of the Prosecutor’s Office concluded, which called around thirty people, and this Thursday it gave way to the of the defense, which plans to call about 25although the postponement of the sessions until Tuesday and of Sancho’s testimony could delay the final date of the process, scheduled for May 3.

Daniel Sancho, 29, who is transported to court daily in a police van from the nearby Samui prison, where he has been in provisional detention since August 7, is accused of the premeditated murder of Colombian plastic surgeon Edwin Arrieta on August 2, 2023 in Phangan.

The young man initially confessed to the premeditated murder of Arrieta in front of the police, but later claimed that it was an accident, insisting that the doctor’s death occurred during a fight in self-defense.