THAILAND: COURT UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCE FOR SPANISH MURDERER
November 20, 2019: The Supreme Court on 20 November 2019 upheld the death sentence for Spanish national Artur Segarra Princep, 40, for the premeditated murder of compatriot David Bernat, 41, in 2016. Segarra was taken from Bang Kwang Central Prison to hear the ruling at the Central Criminal Court on Ratchadaphisek Road on 20 November. He greeted several Spanish journalists waiting there as he entered the court building. The Spaniard was found guilty of offences including premeditated murder, concealing a body, illegal detention and theft. Public prosecutors earlier told the court that human parts were found in the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani provinces on the morning of 30 January 2016. They were later proved to be from the victim, Bernat. The court based its ruling on circumstantial evidence and surveillance camera recordings, testimony from witnesses including a maid and a girlfriend of Segarra, and DNA samples of Segarra and the victim collected from a freezer and an electric grinder. The court found that Segarra took his business friend Bernat to a room at PG Condominium Rama IX in Huay Kwang district on 19 January 2016. There, Segarra murdered him, froze the body, dismembered it with the grinder and then dropped bags containing body parts into the Chao Phraya River at several locations. Segarra's lawyer said on 20 November his client would exercise his right to seek a pardon and to be held in a prison in Spain. (Sources: bangkokpost.com, 20/11/2019)
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