PM says prisoners may get bail

While the successful politicians and their supporters took a well-deserved rest after a long night of ballot counting, when they woke up today there was still a country to run. And the major problem confronting that country is the continued incarceration of three Belizean soldiers and a policeman by Guatemalan authorities. While the four were scheduled to be arraigned in court today, Prime Minister Said Musa told journalists that he was optimistic that the men would soon be back on Belizean soil.

Prime Minster, Said Musa

“I can report today that based on a phone call I received last night and this morning, from Ambassador Courtenay as well as Ambassador Figueroa, we are very hopeful that by this weekend our boys will return home to Belize.”

Q: And that hope is based on…? Will you be able to discuss the strategies they’re employing?

Prime Minister Musa

“I wouldn’t want to go into it except to say that it might involve arranging, in the first instance, bail for them, but a bail which would afford them to return to Belize.”

Musa’s startling declaration was the first hint that a deal was in the works. Under such a bail scenario the men would presumably be under obligation to return to Guatemala for trial several months from now. Perhaps during that period a diplomatic solution would be found which would eliminate the need to return to court. While News Five could not confirm any such arrangement, the public position of Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo remained unchanged. Quoted in the Guatemalan press Portillo said that in his phone call on Tuesday to Prime Minster Musa, Musa asked him to intercede on behalf of the Belizean prisoners. Portillo’s reply, according to Prensa Libre, was that as much as he’d like to help, he really couldn’t interfere. “It would be a bad precedent to upset the doctrine of separation of powers,” he said. The Belizeans were captured by Guatemalan soldiers on February 24th while on routine patrol in Toledo over 100 meters inside of Belizean territory. Meanwhile, word from Houston is that Belize’s Ambassador to Guatemala Mike Mena, remains hospitalized in the intensive care unit. He was flown out of Guatemala on Tuesday after visiting the Belizean prisoners in Santa Elena, Peten.