There is a Spanish guy, Artur Segarra, who is the prime suspect in the murder of a compatriot (David Bernat) in Thailand. Rather gruesome stuff, I understand.
Artur Segarra has been in the Spanish authorities’ “most wanted” list since last May for fraud and financial crimes. He went abroad and disappeared, only to resurface in Thailand in a rather spectacular way.
I understand that he was finally arrested in Cambodia and extradited back to Thailand.
What would he be looking at in terms of possible penalty in Thailand if he is found guilty of the murder? Death? Life in prison?
I wonder if Spain will bother asking for him to be extradited there. If he is found guilty of murder, I would guess that fraud is a rather lesser crime in comparison. Also, maybe they might think that they don’t want to bother keeping him in jail in Spain.
Just musing about this case. It has made quite a bit of noise in Spain.
El Mundo is saying he might face the death sentence, but they don’t give any actual references. El País is almost ignoring it, you have to search by the guys’ names to find anything…
The bit about the 22-year-old GF who was told “don’t open the freezer” is especially chilling. (Did you see what I did there? Didja? ;))
For those not following along at home but who are curious, it seems that the deceased was found in multiple locations as six of his body parts were found in and along the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani over 4 days.
Yes, a nasty case. As mentioned, the victim was found in three different provinces including Bangkok! The perp will be looking at either death or life in prison, although truth be told cases that don’t involve Thais rarely garner much outrage. Death sentences are routinely commuted to life if the perp has confessed. Not sure if that applies to farangs (Westerners) too. If he has a lot of money to pay in bribes, that could work in his favor.
I recall one case some years ago in which an Israeli man killed his Israeli wife in their Bangkok hotel room while on vacation here. He was seen on cctv moving out the suitcase she was eventually found in. He spent a few years in prison, then Israel somehow got him freed, and he’s back home. I don’t think he faced any further charges there. The wife’s family was predictably outraged, but I haven’t heard of anything further. And once he left Thailand, he became Israel’s problem as far as the Thais were concerned. So you just never know.
The case is a bit more murky than that - Eli Cohen, the killer, was pardoned by the King of Thailand, but the reasons behind it are unclear. Perhaps it was at the request of the Israeli government, but I don’t see why they would care to do that, as there was definitely no public outcry demanding his release. Cohen was a former drug trafficker who got out of prison in Israel by ratting on his colleagues, which was probably why he was in Bangkok in the first place, and it’s a reasonable guess that neither the Israeli government nor the Israeli public had any interest in setting him free.
Interestingly, Cohen did go home, but only long enough to get on a connecting flight out of Tel Aviv to an unknown destination, presumably before the Israeli authorities could figure out what to do with him. AFAIK, he hasn’t been heard of since.
Although the pardons come from the king, he may just sign off on what the bureaucracy puts together. And it’s always possible those bureaucrats have been paid a lot to include a name. Would Cohen have had anyone willing to pay some serious cash?
To add to what Sam has said, I don’t believe Thailand has executed a foreigner at least in the last 40 years. And the last execution was in 2009. If he’s sentenced to death, it will almost certainly be commuted to life in prison and then he may end up in a prison swap back in a Spanish prison.
Of course as Sam says if he has any assets or friends willing to pony up some cash then the outcome is very uncertain.
I’m not sure if he was hiding them. May have just dumped them all in the river, as the parts were strung out all along the river at different points. Or maybe he had them in a bag, and the bag came open after he dumped it, the parts floating free.
On a side note, there’s a special website dedicated to foreign deaths in Thailand. Makes for some interesting if morbid reading. See it here. The Spaniard mentioned in the OP, David Bernat, is included.
There was a case in which I consulted about 5 years ago. Local man was convicted of drug offences in Pattaya. He was transferred back home under the agreement of transfer of offenders. Now typically these require that the offender serve his sentence in his home country as if he had been serving it in the sentencing country.In reality there is a provision to release the persons under certain circumstances; in his case he had been tortured pretty badly by the Thai police*; his conviction under the same conditions would not have been maintained in Pakistan, OTH he was certainly guilty of what the said.
The decision was made to parole him; typically this results in protests from the sentencing nations; Thailand did not let out a squeak and a few months later he did the decent thing and got himself killed in some sort of gangland bust up.
Point being, I think the Thais see it as being well rid of the person and I suspect Israel did as well.
Don’t know anything about Thai criminal and police procedure, so I cannot say whether this was an aberration, standard or a case of getting their frustrations out on an asshole who had it coming anyway,