Witnesses give airtight alibi for Hummingbird robbery suspects
It was announced with all the fanfare and drama the press and public have come to expect every time the police want to make a point. Reeling from charges of ineptitude and brutality on the part of law enforcement authorities, the Minister of National Security and his Commissioner of Police on Friday assured the nation that two of the perpetrators of the most brazen crime ever committed in Belize had been apprehended.
Dean Barrow, Minister of National Security
“There are persons in custody who we are satisfied were part of the team of robbers who carried out this exercise on the Hummingbird Highway on that Saturday.”
While Minister Barrow and Commissioner Brooks may be satisfied, there were many more who were not. It developed over the weekend that the two suspects being held behind bars had an airtight alibi. According to dozens of fellow workers and supervisors at H.T.A. Bowman Limited, both Alfonso Teul and Eluterio Vasquez spent the entire morning of May second picking oranges in the Stann Creek Valley, over twenty miles from where the robbery was taking place. On Sunday News Five’s Stewart Krohn met with three men who swear that it is physically impossible for Teul and Vasquez to have committed the crime.
Alfonso Trujillo, Supervisor, H.T.A. Bowman Ltd.
“We left compound about between six thirty and seven in the morning, went into the field with all the people – all the workers – and two fellows Eluterio Vasquez and Teul, Alfonso Teul was there with us.”
Q: “All Saturday morning you kept your eye on these fellows?”
Alfonso Trujillo
“Watch them dat they di work. Make sure day they are working to get pay for the holiday.”
Q: “Roy Davis, you are a transport driver; you drive a tractor. Did you drive these men in your tractor?”
Roy Davis, Driver, H.T.A. Bowman Ltd.
“Yes, definate. I pick up these men at the compound and see that the two men enter the trailer at the time and take them over as the captain seh, six thirty – you know sometime yuh mek bad time and di crowd get wid it – to take them ova and I sure I tek ova di two men.”
Q: “And did you also take them back?”
Roy Davis
“I also take them back.”
Q: “So there’s no way in your estimation that you could have taken them and they run off the Hummingbird Highway, commit this crime and come back?”
Roy Davis
“I think it’s highly impossible for something like that.”
Q: “Christopher West, you are senior supervisor for H.T.A. Bowman and you were in charge of this crew that Saturday. What did you see?”
Christopher West, Senior Supervisor, H.T.A. Bowman Ltd.
“That day we went out, as Alfonso said, about six thirty and he explained already how it really worked that day, which is we have to stay right behind the workers, see to it that they are working and keep in touch with them. We had left some trailers parked from Thursday, which was Friday di holiday we didn’t work. Davis the driver then went after ih left we off at the factory to offload it. It took him some time, like about, came back about eleven – little after eleven. When he brought the news to us that there were a robbery in the valley, or on the road up on the southern road because he was there when they brought some other guys in a towhead from where the robbery took place that were shot.
It was surprising to us that these two men were right there hearing this same news that they brought – what he was telling us – and now they say that they were the ones that were doing that.
As a matter of fact I had a problem with the same guy about ten to ten thirty, this Eluterio Vasquez. What he did, he had some row before from the Thursday that weren’t finished so they came and they finished it. Now that they had to make twenty bags he went and get in somebody else’s row – took the best trees – so that he could have made the twenty. So when I passed by I asked what you doing here; you no supposed to deh ina dis man row. Why you neva gone and find yuh own row. This same guy Eluterio Vasquez. That was about ten thirty. That same day the robbery were tooking place so I don’t identify these guys as the person who participated in the robbery. It is obviously impossible.”
Q: “So it is clear from all three of you plus dozens of other men who were in the same work group these two guys could not have been directly involved in that crime?”
The three men
“Impossible”
Q: “The question arises, when the police came for these men, didn’t you and other men tell them this?”
Christopher West
“Yes. They did ask because I was the one in charge. So they came directly to me and I took them to Alfonso Teul and they took Teul, when they asked me if these fellows were working at the day of the robbery took place, I told them yes. Like everything the police must do his job. I corporate with the police and they went, thinking that they would release them after finding out that they were working.
Later on I get to understand that they were charged for the crime that took place, that’s when we get together and say no way, we can’t allow this because these men are innocent. Regardless of nationality or whatever, these guys are innocent. That’s why we came forth, make the rest of the country know because then according to Mr. Brooks he is positive that these men were part of the robbery and from both of us and many others who know the truth like where we work in the valley. If you go there men, those people are crying shame. And if we didn’t come forth, the rest of the people were looking to strike because they know the fact that these people are innocent. When I went to work on Saturday morning the whole crowd stop work because they wanted the boss to do something about it because the guys are innocent.”
