Grenade smugglers sentenced

In April two men were arrested for bringing hand grenades into Belize. Jose Roberto Chacon has already been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, after pleading guilty to importing explosives and evading customs duties, and today his accomplice was fined almost six thousand dollars for his role. Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord sentenced Jose Serafin Alejandro Morales for the same offenses, in default four years in prison although Chacon had claimed the two grenades and a colt pistol and ammunition were his and that he had put them in Morales bag. Magistrate Lord also ordered that the two grenades be destroyed. Chacon and Morales were apprehended on April 25th by an off duty police officer who though they were behaving suspiciously aboard a bus bound for Belize City from the Cayo district.