Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, a 30-year-old chef, was found guilty of the premeditated murder of Edwin Arrieta Arteaga on the tourist island of Koh Phangan last year.
The case has generated enormous interest in Spain because the defendant’s father, Rodolfo Sancho, is a well-known actor, and scores of Spanish reporters have flown in for the trial.
Bussakorn Kaewleeled, a lawyer for the victim’s family, said they were happy with the outcome. Sancho claimed he killed Arrieta, 44, in self-defence, and admitted hiding the body, but denied destroying the Colombian’s passport.
The trial heard that Sancho chopped up Arrieta’s body and put the parts in plastic bags before distributing them around Koh Phangan.
While Thailand still has the death penalty for some crimes, including premeditated murder, it rarely carries out executions — the last being in 2018.
Arrieta’s family said before the verdict that they favoured a sentence of life imprisonment.
Sancho and Arrieta agreed to meet in person after getting to know each other online.
Sancho’s father said in the same HBO documentary that Arrieta had threatened his son, and then “there was a fight, and in this fight, there was an accident”.
The defence argued that Sancho acted in legitimate self-defence after Arrieta tried to force him to have sex.
A lawyer for the victim’s family, Juan Gonzalo Ospina, said in a recent interview with El Mundo that Sancho was living a false reality..
Ospina said it was proven at the trial in April that Sancho had bought knives, plastic bags and cleaning supplies ahead of the crime and kept them in the room where the killing took place.