Policeman, 2 soldiers charged in kidnapping

This afternoon, twenty-three year old Police Constable Martin Castillo, and two BDF soldiers: thirty-two year old Juan Jimenez and Urbanos Teck, twenty-one, were escorted to Magistrate’s Court where they were arraigned on charges of kidnapping. It is alleged that the cop, the two soldiers and civilians Emerson Wade of Belize City and Wallington Russell of Bermudian Landing, kidnapped two Belize City men on Sunday morning. According to police, Castillo has thus far remained tight-lipped, while the two BDF. soldiers maintain that they were led to believe the operation was a legitimate police matter, even though they thought it strange handing over Perez to three men on a boat named Tough Guy. Tough Guy’s owner was detained by police, but to date has not been charged with a crime. Viewers will recall that just after eleven on Sunday morning, the officer and soldiers went to the home of forty-five year old Galindo Pedro Perez, illegally detained him and then handed him over to three men in a skiff. Perez was taken to Swallow Caye and roughed up in the course of being questioned about a stash of drugs Perez and his friends were supposed to have found. Not satisfied with the information provided, the abductors returned to Belize City for Perez’s friend: fifty-year-old Juan Mendoza. Mendoza was also snatched and intensely grilled at the caye. It was when the kidnappers returned to Belize City a third time that they were ambushed by a group of police officers who had been tipped off to the goings on.