Commissioner Whylie, retired Supt. Julio Valdez are before Senate on Wednesday

News Five has confirmed that the Senate Special Select Committee is taking a different tack for its hearing on Wednesday at the National Assembly in Belmopan.  For the last two weeks, four Ministers of Government have been testifying about their activities in relation to the Immigration Department.  Now for the first time, the Committee is turning full attention to the Police Department, calling retired Superintendent of Police Julio Valdez and the Commissioner of Police himself, Allen Whylie, as witnesses.  In February of 2014, a leaked memo from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions questioned among other things who asked Superintendent Valdez to stop his investigation in the Immigration Department, which has never been satisfactorily answered.  As for the Commissioner, he ignored an order from Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin to resume investigating the Penner matter and stonewalled a private prosecution of the case, leading to its failure in Magistrate’s Court. Commissioner Whylie told reporters almost a month ago when discussing another recent witness, A.S.P. Rochelle Chan, that the Department “will do what it needs to do” in respect to the Senate’s recommendations.

Reporter

“Sir you’ve said that the senate [inquiry] will run its course and if whatever decisions the senators make in their reports, should they direct that criminal action be taken, is it a commitment from you that those will be carried through if the decision is made that criminal prosecution must be done or that further investigation is done?”

Allen Whylie, Commissioner of Police [File: June 23rd, 2017]

Allen Whylie

“Whatever the senate committee does or recommends I’m certain those recommendations will come to me because there is a process.  But whenever and if it reaches that stage I can assure you that we’ll do what we need to do.”

Channel Five continues its live coverage on Wednesday morning beginning at ten a.m.