City chopping victim loses hand, two fingers

Another chopping this time in Belize City early Sunday morning, did not result in death … but that’s of little consolation to the victim.

Leonel Ibanez, Brother of Chopping Victim
?We wish and we hope that the police try to get these guys and take them off the streets, because we don?t know what will happen next. It?s my brother now and it could have been the brother of someone else or son or whatever and that is something that we don?t want to be happening in the streets of Belize.?

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
The blood splattered wood and street side tells you just how vicious the machete attack was on twenty four year old Luis Armando Ibanez, a watchman for the Insurance Corporation of Belize. Ibanez was chopped repeatedly by several young men as he tried to run to safety into the I.C.B.?s building under construction on Daly Street. According to Leonel Ibanez, his brother was returning after his usual walk to buy food around two on Sunday morning when he was rushed.

Leonel Ibanez
?They chase him with this machete and he ran for his life and when he tried to open the gate but the guys were too close to him and they started to attack him. He tried to defend himself by putting up his hands and hiding his face and that is what caused him to lose one of the arms and the chop wound to his head. According to one witness was that the last wound he got was when the guys actually returned to give him his final chop to make sure he is dead.?

Ibanez says as his brother tried to defend himself, his left hand and two fingers of his right were chopped off.

Leonel Ibanez
?Quite a number of chop wounds on his left arm and his arm was amputated. He also has a number of chop wounds on his head and he has one huge chop that has him in the condition that he is in right now.?

Jacqueline Godwin
?That?s the one to the back of the head??

Leonel Ibanez
?Yes the one to the back of the head.?

Ibanez remains in the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital but while his condition is expected to improve, the prognosis is uncertain.

Leonel Ibanez
?According to the doctor what he told us yesterday was that if he does recover he will not be a normal person again or he would probably be paralyzed. But the way we are seeing it and hopefully that is the way it will be, he will be a normal person. He is doing very good.?

But as the family hopes for the best the police continue to look for the men who delivered the blows.

Leonel Ibanez
?We do not have any kind of clues or we do not want to think what was really that triggered this gruesome attack. It is something very crucial. I mean chopping someone with a machete is?you know you hold a knife and you actually get a small cut and it feels so bad, so imagine getting chop wounds with a machete. So we would like to ask the police to do the best that they can do. I know they have clues already as to whom did it, and we believe that they will arrest the people who did it and we will get justice.?

If you can assist the police in their investigation please contact the nearest police station, or Crime Stoppers at 0-800-922-8477.