The Arrieta family had perceived “anomalies” as one of their lawyers described, in the last days of the trial of Daniel Sancho. A few hours before the accused’s statement is made in the Koh Samui Court, the Arrieta legal team has sent a letter to the Spanish embassy in Thailand in which he denounces “influences” of the diplomatic corps in favor of Sancho during the procedure.
In the letter, to which he has had access Infobae Spainthe lawyer Juan Gonzalo Ospina, points out that “in what should be a normal process, in which within the scope of Thai sovereignty a Spanish citizen accused of murdering and dismembering in Thailand to a Colombian citizen, we have found that the vice consul of his embassy, the Hon. Mr. Ignacio Vitónica Hamilton, attends all oral trial sessions together with an interpreter, who apparently also belongs to the Spanish diplomatic mission in Thailand.”
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“The Arrieta family has asked me if the presence of the vice-consul, Vitónica Hamilton, at the trial in Ko Samuisitting on the bench together with Daniel Sancho’s family, is due to some official decision issued from his Embassy,” he continues.
The letter, addressed to the Spanish ambassador in Thailand, Felipe de la Morena, warns of possible influences on the procedure: “The Arrieta family considers that the presence of a Spanish diplomat at the trial, as he is not a direct or indirect relative of the parties nor has any political relevance, could represent a implicit message to the Thai authorities and, therefore, be interpreted as a way to influence the judicial process.”
Lawyer Juan Gonzalo Ospina testified on behalf of the Arrieta family in the Sancho trial session last Wednesday. From Thailand, he cast doubt on possible “anomalies” in the case, especially after the prosecutor acknowledged to journalists that it would be “difficult” to prove the premeditation in the crime, an aggravating circumstance that the Prosecutor’s Office noted in its final report on the case.
According to the lawyer in the letter, the presence of the Spanish vice-consul in “all” sessions of the trial of Daniel Sancho violates “the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of April 24, 1963, as well as Spanish laws and regulations, such as Law 2/2014, of March 25, on State Action and Foreign Service.”
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“In my professional experience assisting Spaniards detained and tried in foreign countries, specifically, in Germany, Malta or France,” adds the representative of the Arrieta family, no Spanish diplomat or members of the respective diplomatic missions have ever attended the acts of oral trial as spectators international observers”.
The Arrieta family was also surprised when Daniel Sancho’s statement was suspended last Thursday due to problems with the air conditioning in the Koh Samui Court, a request made by his defense and which the court accepted.
