Julian Cho’s widow wants answers from police
The family and friends of Maya leader Julian Cho whose body was found at his Punta Gorda home on December first say there are still many unanswered questions about his death. This morning the Southern Alliance for Grassroots Empowerment, SAGE, held a press conference in Belize City in which Cho’s wife Maggie and his close associates asked for public support in their attempts to gain information from the police and medical authorities. They are also asking that Julian’s efforts to promote the rights of the Maya and the causes he championed over the past several years, such as the end of logging on Mayan ancestral lands, and the need for fair land distribution, become national concerns. News Five was at the Radisson Fort George this morning.
Although police have described Julian Cho’s death as an accident and believe he somehow fell from a second storey addition to his home and hit his head, his wife and family say they have reason to believe he was murdered. They say the police have not given the case the attention it deserves, nor has the family even received a copy of the postmortem results. Maggie Cho says that she met with Commissioner of Police Ornel Brooks last week and is waiting for his help.
Maggie Cho, Julian’s Widow
“My purpose is to push the investigation, if there is any that is going on at all, to a higher level. And for them, to take it seriously, because whoever committed this crime is still roaming the streets of P.G. and will not think twice to commit the murder again. I am here today to fight and seek for justice.”
Maggie says her husband received death threats from workers displaced by the suspension of the Malaysian Logging Concession, something Julian and the Toledo Maya Cultural Council had been lobbying for. She says the position and condition of her husband’s body at the time she discovered it at their home immediately gave her reason to believe someone had waited for the opportunity to make real the threat.
Maggie Cho
“This man had built that house and he knows where he was at. Anybody, the position that I found him, if he had fallen from there he would not have been laid out straight with his hands by his side. He would be in a different position. And was soaking wet, as if he was, as if somebody had washed away the blood that was there. When I found him, it was nothing compared to what it would have been if he had fallen there and did not make any move at all.”
In the days following Julian Cho’s death rumors were rampant in Toledo that Julian had a drinking problem and had been drinking with friends the night of his death. Bartolo Teul addressed the question of Julian’s drinking habits.
Bartolo Teul, Ketchi Council of Belize
“One of his ways, if he was in a barroom and there were five or six other Maya friends there, he will order drinks for all of them. So if people say he had been drinking days on end, I have not had that experience with him since I have known him. He would, I’m not saying he doesn’t drink; he is a social drinker.”
Teul says because medical authorities have not been communicating with the family or Maya organizations they too are only hearing rumors and don’t have any proof there was alcohol in Julian’s system the night he died.
Teul and Maggie Cho say all they want at this point is for someone to investigate the case more thoroughly and Maggie is asking that the officer in charge be replaced since they allege he is related to someone who could have been involved in her husband’s death. Karla Heusner for News Five.
The police’s official communication to the media on Julian Cho’s postmortem was that he died from a brain hemorrhage. Head of C.I.B. Simeon Alvarez told News Five they believe the death was an accident.
