Taxi driver Roy “Bullet” Craig is out on bail for the sexual assault of a sixteen-year-old minor in whose company he was surprised with when he was busted by the police on Thursday night at a hotel that is located not too far from where he resides. The police on Monday provided a full account […]
Prominent LGBT activist Caleb Orozco has, for better or worse, become the face of the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation in Belize. In 2016, he won a monumental decision in the Supreme Court which decriminalizes consensual sexual acts in private between adults who are capable of consenting. But Orozco has now been dragged unwillingly […]
Before the Section fifty-three decision, in 2013 the National Assembly passed a raft of amendments to the Criminal Code to reform the law in relation to sexual offenses against children. Under that amendment, sexual crimes against male minors were criminalized – like crimes against female minors. Orozco, along with UNIBAM fought for the amendments. He […]
A nineteen-year-old truck driver was knocked down and killed this morning in Burrell Boom Village. Police say Kendell Goff was heading to work when a pickup truck hit him as he crossed the street. His family, however, claims that eyewitnesses told them that Goff had already crossed the street when he was struck by the […]
Police have arrested and charged Jerry O’hara David with manslaughter by negligence, causing death by careless conduct and driving without due care and attention for the fatal traffic accident that claimed the life of fifty-two-year-old Andres Philip Diego. Diego was riding his bike between miles ten and eleven on the Stann Creek Valley Road when […]
Two cops are home free tonight after charges against them were dropped in the San Pedro Magistrate Court. The duo was charged last April for firing indiscriminately at a crowd of spectators on the island after hitting a woman. Five persons were injured in the mayhem and the officers were subsequently placed on interdiction. According […]
On Monday night, police announced charges of attempted murder, use of deadly means of harm, dangerous harm, wounding and abetment to commit murder filed against twenty-year-old Jason Anderson and twenty-four-year-old Reese Fitzgibbon. This morning, the pair appeared before Senior Magistrate Aretha Ford. Anderson and Fitzgibbon along with another person still being sought by police are […]
Since last Thursday, there were reports circulating that vocal Belize City taxi man, Roy Craig, better known as ‘Bullet’ and ‘Street Vibes’ was in trouble with the law. Tonight Bullet is on bail after arraignment this afternoon for the crime of sexual assault of a minor. The seventy-six-year-old outspoken cabbie was unrepresented in court and […]
Gang violence isn’t letting up, despite the roundup of gang members across the Old Capital. Tonight, a fifty-six-year-old man is fighting for his life at the K.H.M.H. following broad daylight shooting on Saturday afternoon on Iguana Street, near the Belize City Racoon Street Police Station. Steve Finley and thirty-year-old Tyrone Barcelona were fixing a vehicle […]
Today, Leon Garcia was laid to rest in Belize City; he was the first murder victim for 2018. Heavy police presence was noted in the Saint Joseph Church area where funeral services were held. Garcia was savagely stabbed during an ambush by at least thirty persons, believed to be gang members. His brutal murder has […]
Full details are to come from the Police Department, but Belize’s rate of murders remains high. Official statistics from the Department as revealed by Minister of State Elodio Aragon Junior at Friday’s House meeting, confirm a total of one hundred and forty-two murders countrywide, an increase of four from 2016’s figure of one hundred and […]
On the adjournment of the House of Representatives on Friday, Leader of the Opposition John Briceño gave a general address on the issue of crime, zeroing in on the murder of Fareed Ahmad on December twenty-eighth, for which a woman police constable, Michelle Brown, has been charged. While Briceño was not able to bend the […]
At first glance, it seems like just another night on the street in the Old Capital. A group of young men are hanging around and shooting the breeze. Except this street is George Street, and the young men you will see in this video are soldiers of the feared George Street Gang, also known as […]
Seven persons in the City are without a home tonight in the wake of a fire. Shortly before eight-thirty on Friday night, a blaze tore through the wooden home in Taylor’s Alley and destroyed everything inside the two-storey house. No one was injured, but two pets perished during the blaze. Firefighters managed to contain the […]
The House of Representatives met today in a chilly Belmopan for the first time in 2018. The widely anticipated 2018 General Revenue Supplementary Appropriation Bill dealing with the UHS judgment was presented for first reading. This follows the arrival of the official certificate of judgment from the C.C.J. on Thursday, which sets the tab at […]
The Prime Minister repeated in greater detail his earlier sentiments from the November twenty-second press conference which seemed to present a legal basis by which Parliament could decide not to pay the judgment. He cited cases, lawyer-style, from other Commonwealth jurisdictions facing similar issues, and even suggested means in which the Crown Proceedings Act or […]
But Opposition Leader John Briceño appears unconvinced by any of it. Following the House meeting he told reporters that none of the Prime Minister’s arguments or those of the attorneys the government has paid over the years have succeeded where it counts; indeed, the only success has been to increase the debt burden. He also […]
The Prime Minister indicated that there will be at least a month’s grace period to the next House meeting when the debate takes place. In that time, the interest continues to accrue. But apart from the legal arguments, the moral question is a much easier one for the Prime Minister to respond to: in short, […]
As noted in our top story, Prime Minister Dean Barrow is going ahead with the Commission of Inquiry agreed on with the National Trade Union Congress of Belize. But before any appointments can be made and a schedule set, the Congress has to draft terms of reference for review by legal authorities. Prime Minister […]
The other major issue debated by the House today is a motion to approve a Taiwan ICDF loan to Belize Telemedia Limited for its Internet program. That loan is to cover ninety-six million dollars for a national broadband program which has already been rolled out to San Pedro. But the primary objection by the Opposition […]
In reply, with assistance from Mesopotamia representative Michael Finnegan, Prime Minister Dean Barrow attempted to show how circumstances have changed. As the P.M. said, B.T.L. is majority-owned by the government and the Social Security Board, and it is a public service. He also noted that such government guarantees are par for the course, and suggested […]
Gang violence in the city has once again exploded since the murder of well-known gang leader Leon Garcia on New Year’s Day. On Tuesday night, a pair of gunmen shot and killed Jermain Vellos and injured his wife in what many believe is a case of mistaken identity. On Wednesday, they struck again, shooting an […]
As the GSU cracks down on rivalry gangs in the City, another act of violence overnight left an elderly man in critical condition. A bullet penetrated the cheek of fifty-nine year old Charles Foreman and exited his neck as he sat with this family at his house on Pickstock Street on Wednesday. It is believed […]
The Foreman and Vellos families are still reeling from the deadly attack on their loved ones on Tuesday night in Belize City. Husband and wife couple Jermain and Stephanie Vellos returned to their home on Doris Bishop Street sometime before eight o’clock that night, only to be ambushed by a pair of killers. The hit […]
On Wednesday, we reported on questionable transactions queried by certified public accountant and auditor Cedric Flowers in respect of the 2016-2017 audit of the Public Utilities Commission. He questioned among other things excessive spending on salary and payments to Commission members totaling four point five million dollars. There were also unauthorized purchases on the Commission’s […]
