Government revokes expulsion order for Dr. Willitts

There’s more in the case of William Willitts, the naturalized Belizean doctor who was allegedly kidnapped last Thursday by local police and unceremoniously put on a plane to Miami. In a press release the Ministry of National Security has announced that Willitts was in fact a Belizean citizen and should not have been deported. The expulsion order, which sent him to the States, has subsequently been revoked. Whether this will have any effect on his status or confinement in the U.S. is not clear at this time as U.S. courts have sometimes taken conflicting views on the relevance of how a defendant happened to show up in a given jurisdiction. Minister Jorge Espat, who claims he did not know that Willitts had obtained Belizean nationality, has also announced the possibility that the doctor may be stripped of his Belizean citizenship if an investigation reveals that he obtained it under false pretenses, namely failing to divulge that at the time of application there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. According to a release from the United States Embassy, which requested the deportation order in the first place, Willitts had three outstanding complaints, not convictions, against him at the time he became a Belizean: two for perjury and another for hiding assets and failing to pay child support. The former charges of lying under oath are similar to those leveled at President Bill Clinton.