September Session of Belize City Supreme Court chockfull of cases

Salvador Carballo

The September session of the Belize City Supreme Court has opened; at least forty-five inmates were brought to the court on Monday and today another fifty were escorted under heavy security. As soon as the session got underway, a charge of attempted rape was withdrawn against Eugene Webster. In the afternoon, Jeremiah Pott, who was on bail for the offense of manslaughter in the fatal death of his own brother, saw his charge upgraded from manslaughter to murder.  The court is chock-full of cases; there are twenty-six slated before the Justice Adolph Lucas, while a record breaking amount of ninety-nine are listed before Justice Troadio John Gonzalez.  But in the lower courts, thirty-year old Belize City resident, Salvador Carballo, aka “Salva”, learnt that he will have to go back behind bars.  Just last week, Carballo was handed down a sentence of eighteen months for aggravated assault and six months for threatening his victim. On Monday, Carballo appeared for another case and was swiftly sentenced for an additional five years behind bars for a charge of conspiracy to commit robbery.  Carballo had assisted two co-accomplices to rob his primary school friend at the end of April on Newtown Barracks.  Marcus Cruz had exited a club to urinate when Carballo and two other men robbed him. Cruz testified that he recognized Carballo, who he has known for years and identified him as the person who held him as he was robbed of his gold chain. A police mobile in the area detected Cruz in a struggle with Carballo and detained him. Carballo’s defense was that he was helping Cruz, but the evidence against him was overwhelming and he was found guilty of the offense of conspiracy to commit robbery.  Carballo’s five year sentence is to run consecutively with his recent sentence for aggravated assault handed down by the Chief Magistrate, Anne Marie Smith last week.  This means that he will have to first serve out the first sentence then serve five years for conspiracy.