Murder suspect freed when police can’t produce file

Two men who were on remand on a joint murder charge were today freed … and then rearrested. The case against sixty-seven year old Belizean Adrian Ascencio and Guatemalan, twenty-seven year old Ostilio Garcia, arose from the killing of Jose Armando Perez whose body was discovered buried in a shallow grave on January sixteenth, 2006. Perez had been hacked to death with a machete sometime between December fifteenth and that date in Rhaburn Ridge, a small farming community near mile thirty seven on the Northern Highway. Today Magistrate Aretha Ford struck out the charges when the prosecution could not produce a case file against the accused men following five previous requests. It appears that neither the Ladyville nor Orange Walk police ever followed up by preparing such a file. By late evening police had already detained the two men and were preparing new charges against them with respect to the same murder. It remains to be seen whether they will get their act together this time around.