Eight thousand translated pages at 25 euros each: what a trial abroad really costs, even when the lawyers work for free

There is one sentence in this interview worth more than all the media noise around the case. Rodolfo Sancho, the Spanish actor whose son is serving a life sentence in a Thai prison, explains how he copes: "If you stick only to what you yourself can do, you bring the stress down a little."

That is not philosophy. That is what he has left.

His son, Daniel Sancho, was sentenced on 29 August 2024 to life imprisonment in connection with the death of the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta. He is serving the sentence in Surat Thani prison. The defence has filed an appeal, claiming there were irregularities in the proceedings.

The way the father found out is itself a picture of how news works today: somebody in the family forwarded him an agency wire. Not the police, not the embassy - a wire. Then came phone calls to the embassy and to whoever he could reach, and he only managed to speak to his son after 48 hours. "First there is a brutal shock, an enormous impact," he says, describing a state of dissociation - when the thing is too heavy to accept in the moment.

One detail from the interview explains the whole economics of a case like this better than any legal analysis. Translating the documentation costs 25 euros per 350-word page, and around 8,000 pages have been translated. Do the arithmetic yourself. The legal team worked without a fee - which means that even when the lawyers do not charge, the procedure itself still swallows sums an ordinary person cannot imagine. How many families would survive a bill like that?

He speaks to his son once a week and knows his prison routines. Relations in the family are strained - Daniel, by his account, has cut off contact with his mother, Silvia Bronchalo. Before leaving for Thailand he spent time with his father on Fuerteventura: beach and barbecue. The most ordinary of holidays, two years before all of this.

Rodolfo, meanwhile, is returning to television with a new series. Some will call that odd timing. But a man who still has to pay for 8,000 translated pages does not have the luxury of waiting for the right moment.