Employees of Yhony Rosado rounded up by police
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
Belize City Police have detained five men in connection with the altercation which left twenty-three year old Vitalino Reyes Junior comatose for days at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. That altercation occurred last Thursday at Long Island Bar, allegedly sparked by an active and longstanding rivalry between Rosado and the Reyes families. Reyes Junior is the manager of Cavetubing.bz, and the men detained today are employees of Cavetubing.com, owned by Yhony Rosado. On Tuesday, another of Rosado’s employees, Leon Gentle, was arrested and charged for dangerous harm and use of deadly means of harm. Late this evening attorney Audrey Matura-Shepherd was back and forth between Police precincts trying to ascertain where the men are being held. She told us that the arrest today is likely a result of allegations they made Tuesday night.
Audrey Matura-Shepherd, Attorney for Yhony Rosado
“Five of them have been picked up. Unfortunately, the police are not saying much right now. I say that because I’ve asked clear-cut are you charging them. Some say they don’t know, but information through the guys, they say that they have been told that they will be charged. So I don’t know what the charges would be for, but my clients they all maintain that they were not part of any beating, any fighting. It is unfortunate that they are being targeted and they just have to go through the process. You know Mike, the sad thing in Belize is that police arrests you and then investigate and if you speak up against anything they do, well they are coming after you with a bigger hammer and that is the situation they find themselves in. Yhony himself has not been arrested and charged. He has been at the police station to check on his workers, but he has not been arrested and charged.”
Mike Rudon
“Could you tell us what has changed because I know that one person was arrested and charged? Could you tell us what has changed between then and now…why they have picked up these five other persons?”
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
“Well I asked the police just now at Belama extension if there is any evidence, but of course I got the attitude; they don’t feel like they need to tell you that. They feel that well I can pick up and do anything I want with anyone. I can only suspect it has to do with the fact that we have been very public with the fat that Leon, who was the first one that was charged, was beaten by the police. We’ve been very opened by the fact that we insist and we have gone to the Bureau of Standards to ask them to investigate what happened to that young man, Vitalino Reyes, between the time police picked him up—very conscious yes, albeit drunk—at the bar till the time, an hour later, that he ended up at the hospital unconscious. And I don’t think they like that. And whether people want to accept it or not, the two of them that were taken by police, were really, really intoxicated by all indication and evidence that we have so far. So, I guess they don’t like that we went that far. We also went and we explained that we want an investigation into the treatment of Leon and we also want police to look at the fact that when Leon brought his alibi witness, they didn’t want to take it. It is like they already decided you are guilty. I do have a problem and we wanted that to be addressed. When the guys are giving their statement, I mean the police; they write sometimes what they want. And I am telling you, I never believed when people told me those things, but I saw it myself and it was not a nice situation at the police station. You hear you client telling them information that would help the case and they miraculously didn’t hear that part or didn’t include it. Of course I insisted and they included some. The other thing is that when these guys went to give their own statements on Friday, willingly, the farthest thing from their mind is that they would be implicated in anything because they insist that they weren’t involved in any kind altercation.”
Neither Matura-Shepherd nor News Five was able to find out the status of the detained men before news time.
