Duo loses appeal and remains convicted of robbery/murder
Twice convicted multiple murderers Patrick Robateau and Leslie Pipersburgh were in the Court of Appeal, just one of the their many stops during a legal process which has gone from the Supreme Court all the way to the Privy Council and back and has spanned almost thirteen years. The men were convicted in 2004 of the June 2002 murder of two security guards and two civilians in a botched robbery. They were on death row from 2004 to 2008 when the Privy Council quashed their death sentences and ordered a retrial. In 2011 they were again convicted of murder, but this time only two counts for KBH security guards Fidel Mai and Kevin Alvarez. They were sentenced to life in prison but appealed and had their hearing today. Patrick Robateau placed his hopes in attorney Simpson Sampson. In 2002, the duo fled to Mexico using false names and that is where they were detained. Today’s appeal is also rooted north of the border as Sampson argued that former Belize Ambassador to Mexico, Salvador Figueroa questioned Robateau without informing him of his rights. Pipersburgh was represented by attorney Bryan Neal, who maintained that his client was a robber, but not a murder. At around three this afternoon, after hearing the arguments of the Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl-Lynn Vidal and deliberating for only ten minutes, the three Justices of the Court of Appeal dismissed the case. The convicted murders were escorted to the Belize Central Prison to continue serving life sentences.
Privy – A toilet located in a small shed outside a house or other building; an outhouse. I think I like this definition as that is exactly what I think of when I think of the Privy Council. To give these two mistakes that should have ended up as a stain on their parent’s bed sheets a second chance of living their lives out is total sh@t same as the Privy Council is. This perplexes me as these mistakes are given a second chance and four people who had more potential in life were not afforded the same by these animals; where is the justice in this? I spoke to a young man that I knew from childhood and who had recently been paroled from prison and he said very frankly “there is but two things to do in prison smoke cigarette and smoke weed”. He went on to say he had to quit smoking weed in order to be paroled and in the same breath said “you know what I did the first day when I got out”? “I bought the biggest amount of weed I could get and smoked day and night until I was tired”. He went on to say that things aren’t too good out here and as soon as it gets too tuff he will “do somebody something” to go back to prison because it was easier in there than out here; this is rehabilitation Kolbe style and at the expense of tax payers. Then we wonder why wild animals like these two roam the streets of this country willing to kill at will. So to condemn these degenerates to a life of vacation is hardly punishment as far as I am concerned. The only justice to be had in this corrupt country is at the hands of a lynch mob made up of citizens that will stand up and say enough is enough. The justice system and courts are set up to protect the criminals and litigate the governments hostile takeover of companies; take over’s that happen under the guise of doing it for the good of the people while making the politically connected attorneys rich at the tax payers’ expense. The so called justice system and courts has nothing to do with justice or maintaining the rule of law… on the contrary if the crime rate goes down there would be a whole lot of attorneys trying to make ends meet. Crime really does pay in Belize and look at the fine neck tie wearing examples we have in government, these top criminals really do lead by example.