Marco Vidal Hands Himself in to Belmopan Police; No Charges Brought Against Him
Marco Vidal
Earlier today, former Assistant Commissioner of Police Marco Vidal visited the Belize Police Department. He did so in the company of Senior Counsel Godfrey Smith, following a stop at an establishment in the Maya Mopan area of Belmopan on January fourteenth. He was accompanied by two other men who alighted a sports utility vehicle along with him. A brief encounter between Vidal and the proprietor of the store was recorded and surveillance footage of the visit remains in wide circulation on social media. This morning, however, an electronic copy of the conversation that was held in Spanish between Vidal and the unnamed business owner was presented to the officers at the headquarters. That recording has since been shared with the media and we will be airing the dialogue in its entirety, with subtitles in English, in just a few. But first, we’ll take a look at the details of a statement that was given by the retired Commander of Operations to Belmopan police. According to Vidal, on Saturday around midday, he stopped by a shop not far from where Elmer Nah resides. There, he met two women, one at the counter and another by the store shelves. He then began asking the older woman a few questions. Here is the recording of that short exchange.
(Transcribed in English)
Vidal
“I am Vidal. I wanted to know if you remember December 31.”
Female
“What about December 31st?”
Vidal
“Were you here on December 31st? All day?”
Female
“I was at church.”
Vidal
“Has the police come by here asking if you had any camera (surveillance) recording?”
Female
“No.”
Vidal
“Can I take a look at the surveillance footage?”
Female
“What are you looking for?”
Vidal
“We want to know who was around here, from around 6 to 10 at night.”
Vidal
“You were a victim to someone who entered here, is that right? No?”
Female
“Yes they assaulted my husband.”
Vidal
“Is your surveillance camera on 24 hours a day?”
Female
“Yes. It gets erased every 2 or 3 weeks.”
Vidal
“Did they catch the person that entered here?”
Female
“Yes. They have him detained.”
Vidal
“So can we see the footage to see who was around here at that time?”
Female
“The thing is that the cameras (recorder) are in my room and my daughter is sleeping in there. But what exactly are you looking for?”
Vidal
“Well that’s the thing – we want to know who was around here that night because supposedly there was a vehicle or a person in the area. We don’t know. We are trying to find that out.”
Female
“Come by later.”
Vidal
“At what time?”
Female
“Around 2pm.”
Vidal
“Thank you.”
With the audio recording having been presented to police, no charges were brought against Vidal. According to attorney Godfrey Smith, the actions of the former assistant commissioner were in no way illegal. He said that Vidal simply carried out a fact-finding mission to determine what transpired in that vicinity on December thirty-first, 2022. On that night in question, brothers Jon and David Ramnarace, along with Vivian Belisle-Ramnarace, were ruthlessly dispatched by a lone gunman who entered their residence and shot them in cold blood. The suspect in that triple murder is Elmer Nah, the nephew of Marco Vidal. Nah remains on pre-trial detention at the Belize Central Prison. It is expected that an additional count of murder will be tacked on to his to charge sheet, following the weekend passing of Vivian Belisle-Ramnarace.
