Another nolle prosequi sets murder defendant free

It’s become a common phrase in the courtroom but today “nolle prosequi” broke the heart of a Belize City mother as the men accused of her son’s murder walked out of court free men. Twenty-six year old Callum Sutherland and twenty-three year old Alfred Conorquie were arrested in November 2006 and charged with murder following the shooting death of twenty-one year old Damion Gordon. But this morning the prosecution withdrew the charges against both men, forcing Justice Adolph Lucas to set them free. According to the Director of Public Prosecutions, his case fell apart after the star witness, Austin Bennett, claimed that he lied when he signed a statement that he saw who killed Gordon. Bennett says that confession was forced out of him by police investigators working the homicide. And while Sutherland and Conorquie are breathing fresh air, the victim’s mother is barely breathing. This afternoon an emotional Jacienta Gordon told News Five that she hadn’t even been informed that the case had been called and only found out through word of mouth that the charges had been withdrawn. On November nineteenth 2006, Gordon was standing at the corner of Iguana and Seagull Streets when a car pulled up and a young man inside the vehicle fired several shots through the passenger window. One of the bullets fatally wounded Gordon, causing him to die shortly after arrival at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.