Guatemalan diplomats targeted in gangster style shooting
We don’t know whether to classify tonight’s lead story as crime, politics, or international relations… but whatever you call it, be sure that something very fishy went on Monday evening on the southside of Belize City. The barebones story, as released by police is that around six in the evening a vehicle with three occupants was parked on Pelican Street between Elson Kerr and Central American Boulevard. According to one of the occupants, twenty-four year old Rene Caceres, two men approached and one fired several shots from a handgun that shattered the rear window, the broken glass cutting Caceres in the face and neck.
It sounds just like another drug-related shooting in a neighbourhood that is no stranger to flying bullets. But this story has a twist. The vehicle in question was an S.U.V. with diplomatic plates… belonging to the Embassy of Guatemala. And the other two occupants of the official vehicle were Guatemalan diplomats; namely the Embassy’s charge d’affaires, thirty-one year old Fernando Molina, and the Embassy driver, thirty-one year old Melvin Martinez.
What were Guatemalans doing on Pelican Street that so aroused the ire of a gunman? Hopefully police will ask him, because today they arrested one Mark Anthony Jones and marched him into Magistrate’s Court where he was supposed to be charged with three counts of attempted murder and grievous harm. Those charges were never filed, however, as there was some dispute over Jones’s age. He claimed to be seventeen, which would put his case in Family Court, but the D.P.P. requested verification and until the matter is settled Jones will remain in detention. Because of the diplomatic angle, the police have been very uptight about the matter and refused us permission to photograph the Guatemalan vehicle now in custody at the Queen Street police station. We attempted to reach the Foreign Ministry, which is apparently exercising control over the case, but as usual, their phones were constantly engaged.
