In 2019, Leroy Haulze was arraigned for the murder of clothing vendor Jose Diaz, who was shot at his place of business on Cemetery Road in Belize City. Today, Haulze was delivered a life sentence and will spend thirty-one years in prison before he will be eligible for parole. The charge came after video evidence […]
Two men who shot at police officers in Ladyville on Sunday night have been charged for aggravated assault with a firearm upon a police officer on duty. On Sunday, police responded to reports of a fight in progress in front of a bar on Woodpecker Road. When the officers arrived at the location, two men, […]
A man who was found guilty for the murder of his wife was today sentenced to life imprisonment. David Gonzalez listened as High Court Judge Ricardo O’Neil Sandcroft sentenced him to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after he has served thirty-five years behind bars. The judge deducted the time that Gonzalez has already […]
Two youths who are charged with the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl were today arraigned in the Belize City Magistrate’s Court. They are eighteen-year-old Ikwan Reneau and a sixteen-year-old minor. The arraignment took all day as the issue of whether bail should be granted to the two accused persons was being contemplated. In the end, […]
The incident for which the teens are charged happened in the Saint Martin de Porres area on Monday inside an abandon house near the riverside. After an intense investigation and three nights in custody, police charged the two youths. The case against the minor and Reneau is set to come back before the court on […]
Christmas 2023 has come and gone, but not without its share of mishaps. On December twenty-fourth, around ten thirty a.m., a female police officer reported that she and another female officer had been attacked by a group of men with dynamites. The officer claimed that she and her colleague were working at a police booth […]
Twenty-three-year-old John Delcid was arraigned earlier today in the lower court on a single count of common assault. He is charged with attacking his older brother during a dispute over a missing bucket of paint. Delcid, an unemployed resident of Lawrence Avenue, appeared unrepresented before a Senior Magistrate where he pleaded not guilty to committing […]
Twenty-three-year-old Rupert Codd attempted a dash for freedom after being arraigned earlier today in the magistrate’s court for the sexual assault of a woman. At 2:30 this afternoon, Codd was escorted to Courtroom Number Five where he was read a single charge of sexual assault upon a forty-one-year-old woman. It is alleged that he groped […]
You may recall that, just a few days ago, municipal court bailiff Brandon Gillett was remanded to the Belize Central Prison on multiple firearms offenses. The thirty-eight-year-old spent a total of five nights behind bars, including Christmas. However, on Thursday, Gillett was released on ten thousand dollars bail and is spending his second night at […]
Twenty-eight-year-old Shaquille Perrera, a resident of Lake Gardens, Ladyville, has been arraigned on a charge of murder, as well as attempted murder, following a deadly Christmas Eve shooting in Belize City. Perrera, who has beaten a murder rap previously, stands accused of killing thirty-year-old Darnell Puerto and injuring Jevon Ramclam during an incident at Ramclam’s […]
Guilty of the murder of Densmore Bowman, but where is Hildebrandt Codd after escaping lawful custody prior to his last court appearance? This morning, that verdict was handed down in the absence of the fugitive who sprang to freedom on December fifth out of Courtroom Number Three. Here’s News Five’s Isani Cayetano with details of […]
Today, twenty-six-year old Tracey Betancourt was found not guilty and will serve no time for the murder of American businessman Lamont Edward Lipka. The forty-nine-year-old was found lying face down in a pool of his own blood after being shot seven times at his business Tropicana Restaurant and Bar in San Pedro in 2018 . […]
Another 2018 murder case was concluded today when forty-year-old Jose Ricardo Mendoza was handed a twenty-five year sentence for the murder of his father-in-law Gaspar Vargas. However, after deductions, Mendoza will only serve twelve of those years. Mendoza, represented by attorney Oscar Selgado, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, and received a one-third […]
This morning at the High Court in Belize City, over a dozen armed police officers were present for several high-profile matters that were before the judiciary, including a pair of life sentences that were handed down to siblings Delson and Tionne Paguada. We’ll tell you more about that judicial outcome elsewhere in our newscast, but […]
Life sentences were handed down to brothers Tionne and Delson Paguada earlier today after they were jointly convicted of the murder of Paul Jex in San Pedro in January 2018. This morning, the siblings appeared under heavy police guard in the High Court chamber of Justice Nigel Pilgrim where they were convicted and condemned to […]
Today, sixty-year-old Efrain Beltran Martinez was told that his initial twenty year sentence for the death of forty-three-year old Elmer Salazar would be reduced to six. Martinez, a Salvadoran national, pleaded guilty to manslaughter early this year, following the death of Salazar- a Guatemalan national who was found chopped to death on the compound of […]
Three men have been charged with the murder of forty-five-year-old Hugo Rodriguez. They are nineteen-year-old Osmar Chiac, twenty-one-year-old Twyford Bradford Smith Junior, and twenty-four-year-old Austin Alexander Conorquie. Investigators believe that the men fatally shot Rodriguez on Sunday night in Carmelita Village, Orange Walk District. Rodriguez was at a local store when he got involved in an […]
Today, the trial of attorney, Oscar Selgado was scheduled to go a full day, but halfway through the morning session, it was adjourned until the morning of January twenty-second, 2024. The adjournment followed a concern raised by the defense in reference to whether they would be permitted to address the details that came out of […]
The Voir Dire that was held in the previous hearings was to test the admissibility of video recordings that the Crown’s main witness had provided but that mysteriously disappeared. Selgado is on trial for abetment to commit murder. The Crown’s main witness, Giovanni Ramirez, alleges that Selgado attempted to hire him to kill Marilyn Barnes […]
Forty-five-year-old Josue Sic stands accused of a heinous act involving a five-year-old girl. It is alleged that on Sunday, December seventeenth, the laborer of a Holy Emmanuel Street address intentionally touched the infant. According to the child’s father, he was socializing with Sic and when he got hungry, he left to purchase food somewhere in […]
Late this evening, twenty-two-year-old Cassius Myers, an electrician, was escorted to the Belize City Magistrate’s Court where he was arraigned on three criminal offenses, including attempted murder, dangerous harm and use of deadly means of harm. Myers is accused of stabbing twenty-six-year-old Maleek Pitts on Sunday, in the vicinity of CET Site in the Lake […]
A forty-eight-year-old Chinese national remains on remand at the Belize Central Prison, pending a speedy trial in early 2024. Jun Yu was provided with disclosure when he appeared unrepresented before a Senior Magistrate earlier today. However, he was denied bail when the lower court judge was not satisfied the two sureties that accompanied his bail. […]
Four police officers who were arrested and charged following the landing of a drug plane on the Southern Highway near Bladen in November 2021 have been dismissed from the Belize Police Department. According to ComPol Williams, the termination of their services was not solely the result of charges that were brought against the men. […]
Earlier today, the Chief Magistrate granted a warrant of apprehension for the arrest of Nimrod Tillett, as well as an application for his extradition proceedings to begin. Tillett, who has been accused of committing two murders in Belize, is also wanted in Mexico for a similar capital offense. It is alleged that he killed a […]
Collin Francis, an inmate at the Belize Central Prison, appeared before the High Court today for a competency hearing. Francis, a mental patient, is accused of attempting to kill a psychiatric nurse by stabbing her. He is also accused of the deadly beat down of Nestor Vasquez Junior. That incident occurred inside the Queen Street […]
