The last prisoner to be executed in Thailand was called Theerasak Longji. She had 26 years and he had been in prison for five years for murdering a 17-year-old boy. She stabbed him 24 times in the chest. Then she took his cell phone and wallet. It was revenge. The victim had stolen his girlfriend. Because it was a premeditated murder, he was sentenced to death. In 2018, Theerasak became the seventh convict to undergo lethal injection, a method that was introduced in 2003, replacing firing squads. There was much controversy over this execution. It was the first to be done in nine years, breaking a de facto moratorium. Human rights groups railed against it.
A few years before the Theerasak case, the Thai government, in the midst of a campaign to win a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, promised that he would take steps to abolish the death penalty. But the reality was quite different: in addition to resuming executions in 2018, crimes punishable by death also increased, from 55 to 63 and with a record number of prisoners sentenced to the maximum sentence.
“Thailand reneged on its own commitment and distanced itself from the current global trend to abolish capital punishment,” he says. Katherine Gersonactivist of International Amnesty in the Southeast Asian country. “Our system is focused on protecting society, instead of the rights and freedoms of criminals. It also sends a warning message that serious crimes will be severely punished,” they defend from the penitentiary department that signed Theerasak’s execution.
Con 70 million inhabitants, this Buddhist nation ranks sixth in the world in terms of prison population. According to the latest official data, of the more than 330,000 prisoners that Thailand has, 520 are on death row, about twenty of them are foreigners, the vast majority for drug crimes. Daniel Sancho could soon be added to that list if the Thai judge complies with the request launched by the Police on Tuesday: capital punishment for premeditated murder and concealment of the body.
The young Spanish chef stabbed and then dismembered Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta with tools he had previously purchased to erase the evidence. It was all part of a plan. For this reason, the investigators requested the maximum punishment. It is usual in these crimes. As is also the fact that the judge in the end dictates life imprisonment. Or, if the sentence is to death, some time after el rey Maha Vajiralongkornin a massive act of clemency for his birthday, commutes it to life imprisonment for many inmates destined for lethal injection.