Attorneys and D.P.P. battle in court Theft case

It was a full day in court for former P.U.P. Housing Minister, Ralph Fonseca over the ten million dollars from Venezuela gifted to Belize. Fonseca’s defense team and the Director of Public Prosecutions battled it out with legal arguments before Belmopan Magistrate Earl Jones. By the end of the day there were a number of submissions made from both sides. Magistrate Jones did not support a submission from the Defense Attorney Francis Fonseca, to strike out one of three depositions provided by the prosecution. Another submission by the defense team was that Belize gained equitable interest through the agreement with Venezuela and that on the date in question, December twenty-eighth, 2007, no theft could have occurred because on that date Belize did not have possession of the funds. Yet another submission by the defense was that if the government of the day used the funds to pay for a government debt, that is a policy decision, not a crime. Bradley pointed out that appropriation occurred, not misappropriation and that Fonseca was in no way dishonest because neither he nor former Prime Minister Said Musa used the money to pay personal debts. While the deposition was not struck out, Michael Peyrefitte, who is also defending Fonseca, said that the deposition was not struck out does not weaken the defense any. We posed questions to the attorneys and the D.P.P. on the arguments brought forth.

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney for Ralph Fonseca
“Absolutely not. We have been working so long on this matter. We uncover every stone; we don’t leave anything to chance. It was something that we believed in because before a person can give a deposition under those conditions, that person has to be summoned, evidence has to be given on oath to the magistrate that that person has good evidence and refuses to give any evidence. Wanted to see where was the summons.”

Marion Ali
“Mr. Bradley you argued that the Venezuelan government never objected to how the money was to be used but yet it was the Venezuelan government that brought to the attention of the current government through a correspondence that it was supposed to be twenty million US, not ten million US. And they were also the ones who requested an accounting of how the money was used.”

Dickie Bradley, Attorney for Ralph Fonseca
“Among the many issues that were submitted to the Magistrate, which we want to emphasize were not properly refuted or legally rebutted by the prosecution is that issue that you are referring to. Now, the question that we are saying is this; that in a meeting on the fifth of March, 2008 the Prime Minister and his C.E.O. were informed that yes there is a written agreement but there is also a verbal agreement. You don’t have to be a lawyer to know that you can have a verbal contract and a verbal agreement. The verbal agreement is—and portions of it were coming out in the deposition—that we want an agreement to be signed to protect the bank. We want you to sign this agreement to protect the bank otherwise we will not disburse the money. But nowhere between when the agreement is alleged to have been signed on the twenty-eight of December up to until the day of election when it was public knowledge and announced all over the country that the Venezuelans had only given ten million dollars, nowhere does the Venezuelans raise that issue to say no, no, we noh give you no ten, dah twenty. It’s only after a change of government that we are hearing, in court yoh call it yer ih soh, hearsay, there is no evidence, no letter has been shown to the court, no note from Venezuela has been shown to the court, no statement from nobody in Venezuela has been shown to the court. In fact it is the Venezuelans who sent the money to the other bank in order to pay the debt. Why would they do that if they did not understand that in fact there was a previous negotiated arrangement that ten million would come to Belize to pay housing and ten million would go for a debt?”

But while the defense felt sure that their position is solid, that there is no case against Fonseca nor Musa, D.P.P., Cheryl-Lynn Branker Taitt, was also confident with the submissions she made that the matter will be tried before a jury in the Supreme Court.

Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt, Director of Public Prosecutions
“My submissions really just looked at all of the elements of the offence of theft and looking at the evidence that we had in proof of each of the elements to show that the submissions that have been made to the court were not really legally sound.”

Marion Ali
“Your counterparts asked to have the deposition of Amalia Mai struck out or disregarded at this point. Had that been done, how would that have broken your case, by how much?”

Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt
“I don’t think I would even need to consider if that had been done because there was no possibility that that could have been done. It was taken in accordance with the Indictable Procedure Act and the legislation was clear in relation to what the requirements are to the admittance of evidence and all of those requirements have been met.”

Dickie Bradley, Attorney for Ralph Fonseca
“The charge sheet charged somebody for committing an offense, you give a date, then that offence had to have been committed on that date. Or in the case of a theft, because a theft could be a continuing thing, at least started or something like that. The only reason they have used that date and used it wrongfully is because Amalia Mai, in her statement, said that she went to Venezuela on the twenty-seventh of December. The evidence is not present as to when the government had the money in order for it to be stolen.”

Michael Peyrefitte
“If you are saying that Mr. Fonseca stole ten million dollars on a particular date and on that particular date the money belonged to the government of Belize you have to show that on that date the money belonged to the government of Belize., in our case, the government of Belize on the twenty-eighth of December, 2007 did not get any money from Venezuela. All that occurred on the twenty-eighth of December 2007, from the evidence, is that the agreement was signed. Now under the law, that means that the moment the agreement was signed, an equitable interest was created. The government of Belize got an equitable interest, but for the purposes of theft, an equitable interest is not considered to be property to be stolen.”

Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt
“One of the persons at the bank had difficulty in relation to an aspect of the transfer of the funds and so she called Mr. Fonseca and he fielded the questions from the individual. My submission was simply that that conversation had to do with the transfer of the funds because that is what the person from the bank was asking about and Mr. Peyrefitte felt that I could not have concluded that that was what the conversation was about because no details of the conversation had been given in the deposition.”

Magistrate Jones adjourned the case until March third when he will rule whether there is a charge of Theft to which Fonseca must answer in the Supreme Court. Meanwhile the former Prime Minister Said Musa’s next court date is February tenth.