9 Men Arraigned for Possession of Controlled Drug With Intent to Supply & Breach of Curfew!
This morning in Orange Walk Town, nine men detained since Friday morning following the crash landing of a drug plane with dozens of bales of cocaine were arraigned in that jurisdiction’s magistrate’s court. Represented by attorneys Dickie Bradley and Leeroy Banner, the men were slapped with a drug trafficking offence and for violating a quarantine regulation. News Five’s Duane Moody reports from outside the courtroom.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Nine men, including three law enforcement officers, were escorted to Orange Walk under heavy police guard and paraded into the magistrate’s court and arraigned for their alleged involvement in January twenty-ninth’s drug plane incident. They were charged jointly for Possession of a Controlled Drug with Intent to Supply and Breach of Curfew, to which they all pleaded not guilty.
Dickie Bradley, Attorney-at-law
“The nine accused persons were arraigned in the Magistrate’s Court of Senior Magistrate Merlene Moody. They were called upon to plea and they all pled not guilty.”
The men were intercepted in the wee hours of Friday onboard a boat in the Hill Bank Lagoon which was near to the crash site. Police say they were in possession of two bales of cocaine.
Chester Williams
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police [File: January 29th, 2021]
“Inside that boat were nine men and a search thereof yield two bales of what we believe to be cocaine. The individuals on the boat were taken to the dock where we learnt the names of the persons to be one Tyrell Talbert, who is assigned to the special patrols unit (SPU), one Byron Clare, police constable assigned to K9 Unit and I think one Steve Rowland – I think that’s the name – who is a lance corporal in the Belize Defence Force. We also had in the vessel, Dwight McFadzean; we have another man Clare, who is the father of PC Clare and some other individuals. There were a total of nine of them as I said. We took possession of the content of the vessel and the individuals were brought here at the Queen Street Police Station where two bales of suspected cocaine was weighed and amounted to somewhere around seventy-eight – no sixty-four kilos.”
Dickie Bradley
“It is my understanding, without going into details from the accused persons, that we Creoles have a phrase that you can be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Duane Moody
“Sir, but they are saying that your clients were found in possession of two bales of cocaine.”
Dickie Bradley
Dickie Bradley
“Possession of two bales. Wow! Okay, well I guess that matter will be tested when it comes to court. All nine of them were in possession of two bales or the two bales were in one of the fishing net or something? You didn’t get the details.”
Duane Moody
“But sir, what were these men doing in that area?”
Dickie Bradley
“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Duane Moody
“Sir but there’s a curfew. There’s quarantine regulations in place and there is a curfew.”
Dickie Bradley
“Okay prosecutor. If you here that a plane has crashed, you wouldn’t want to try and see if you could rescue somebody or try and go to the scene of a crash? There was presumably, according to some thing, that there was a big ball of fire and the police could smell fuel burning and so on and so forth. There must have been two pilots. I don’t know if any of the nine persons from the rural area are pilots, but the pilots and I would imagine that a lot more drugs would be in a plane that size. Those were able to get away, but they were able to get some of the drugs.”
The men were remanded to the central prison in Hattieville until April sixth.
Dickie Bradley
“A magistrate, under the Crime Control Act is not able to grant bail because of the quantity of cocaine. And the law in the country, thank goodness, the law in this country is that they have a right to apply to the Supreme Court to in fact restore their freedom, because you hear the adjournment day is way dah April. Why would innocent people be in prison till April?”
Duane Moody for News Five.
