It was good news and bad news for two brothers in Supreme Court today. This morning, after three hours of deliberation, a jury found Norris Martinez not guilty of murder or manslaughter in the death of forty-five year old Reno Castillo. But, it was back to prison for his brother Wayne Martinez as that same […]
The latest political developments, while dramatic in their own right, have done little to quell the fear of many Belizeans that the demonstrations still planned for tomorrow could turn hostile and lead to significant destruction of property. But when does a violent confrontation become a riot? The question is more than academic, as News Five’s […]
Last Wednesday we reported that the recently recovered Ben Bou-Nahra was to appear in the Supreme Court to face manslaughter charges today. And this morning Bou-Nahra was front and centre before Justice Troadio Gonzales. The case, however, was adjourned until June nineteenth. The businessman is charged with the September 2005 death of Shawn Copious, but […]
A man convicted of manslaughter last week has been sentenced to twelve years behind bars. This afternoon sixty-three year old Francisco Orellano appeared before Justice Troadio Gonzalez to learn his fate. The only person who asked for the court’s leniency on the defendant’s behalf was his landlord who described Orellano as a good person and […]
Today was a busy day for Justice John Muria as he presided over two separate but related cases in the legal clash between union leader Christine Perriott and Belize Telecommunications Limited. At nine this morning, Muria was scheduled to hear B.T.L.’s submission for leave to appeal his decision to reinstate Perriott as an employee pending […]
A former traffic officer convicted of knocking down and killing a teenager has been fined for the offence. Convicted of causing the death of nineteen year old Dwayne Francis by careless conduct last week, this morning Glen Rivero appeared before Justice Adolph Lucas for sentencing. Before handing down his decision, Lucas listened to mitigation pleas […]
Two defendants left the Supreme Court as convicted felons today, one pleading guilty and the other judged culpable by a jury of his peers. The guilty plea was entered by sixty-three year old Francis Orellano. Orellano, originally charged with murder for the January 2005 killing of Andre Torres on Gibnut Street, this afternoon copped a […]
Eight days ago, he pled guilty to killing an elderly man and today Darwin Soberanis learnt his fate. In handing down sentence, Justice Troadio Gonzalez acknowledged that the accused had not burdened the court with a lengthy murder trial, but emphasized that the crime of manslaughter carries a sentence of life behind bars. Gonzalez then […]
The crime occurred over a year ago, but justice was finally administered today for Wilfred Lemoth. Lemoth, initially charged with Attempted Murder and Maim following a macheting incident in Belize City on April nineteenth, 2006, this morning pleaded guilty to Dangerous Harm. Justice Troadio Gonzalez sentenced him to five years in prison, effective from today’s […]
Toledo West representative Marcial Mes has been cleared of all charges with respect to the knockdown and injury of two pedestrians earlier this year. He had been charged with driving without due care and attention, two counts of negligent grievous harm and failure to provide a blood specimen for testing. Magistrate Patrick Rosado ruled that […]
He was charged with murder back in 2004, but today in the Supreme Court Darwin Soberanis pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. The original charge arose from the brutal bludgeoning death of fifty-seven year old Gabriel Pinelo in his San Ignacio home on the night of October fifteenth. Pinelo’s body was found by […]
A man convicted of rape and manslaughter has been sentenced to spend the next eighteen years behind bars. Fifty year old Epifanio Guerra, who pled guilty to both charges on Tuesday, appeared before Justice Troadio Gonzalez this morning to learn his fate. Gonzalez said he took into consideration both the severity of the crime and […]
And back in Belize City, two men charged with murder will have their case tried in the Supreme Court. That was the ruling by Chief Magistrate Margaret Gabb with regard to defendants Taedron Bennett and Joseph Kee. According to Gabb, the evidence was sufficient to send the case to the high court at its next […]
A Belize City grandmother convicted of shoplifting from two supermarkets will spend the next two years behind bars. According to court reports, this morning a tearful Shirley Welcome appeared before Magistrate Dorothy Flowers where she pled guilty to two counts of theft. The fifty-four year old was picked up by police on Monday after the […]
In court news, today two men accused of killing an elderly woman have been sentenced for a lesser crime related to her death. In July 2004, the body of seventy-three year old Mary Blondell was discovered in a shallow grave on her farm in Saint Margaret’s Village on the Hummingbird Highway. A post mortem later […]
B.T.L. has a new employee on the payroll tonight … and her name is Christine Perriott. This morning Supreme Court Justice John Muria agreed with Perriott’s attorney Lois Young, saying that “the power of this court to grant an interim remedy cannot be doubted.” He then approved the order for Christine’s temporary reinstatement to her […]
The case of Christine Perriott versus Belize Telecommunications Limited got underway this morning in the courtroom of Justice John Muria. But before they tackled the substantive issues of Perriott’s reinstatement and compensation for her alleged losses, her attorney Lois Young is in the meantime asking the court to force B.T.L. to give Perriott her job […]
Residents of two Toledo villages will file a suit in the Supreme Court tomorrow, claiming that the Government of Belize has failed to protect traditional Maya land rights. A press release from the Maya Leaders Alliance says the residents seek to have Belmopan formally recognise communal rights to land and related resources based on “longstanding […]
“Mr. Musa was defamed.” Those were the words of Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh this morning as he handed down his judgement in the case of the Prime Minister versus The Reporter’s Publisher Harry Lawrence. Conteh said that Lawrence’s attorney Dean Barrow “failed to prove the truth of the words set out” in the editorial of […]
A man convicted of attempting to rape a teenaged boy has been sentenced to four years in jail. According to court reports, today Justice Adolph Lucas sentenced thirty-six year old Trevor Henry to spend the next four years behind bars. On March twenty-first a jury found Henry guilty of attempting to commit an unnatural crime […]
Two men who pled guilty to ripping off Courts Belize have been fined and released. According to warehouse manager Roleto Ortiz, sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning he discovered that a flat screen computer monitor, C.P.U., speakers, and several other items, valued at more than two thousand four hundred dollars, were missing. Ortiz’s own […]
A former police officer convicted of manslaughter has been sentenced to ten years behind bars. On January twenty-ninth, a jury found then police constable Burton Caliz guilty in the shooting death of Leroy Pilgrim. This morning, the defendant’s primary school teacher, Pamela Bodden and Inspector Dinsdale Thompson, chaplain of the Police Department, spoke on his […]
Bruce Willacey, the young man who changed his story in his friend’s murder trial and was then himself charged with murder, has now had those charges withdrawn and replaced by a count of perjury. The swap took place this morning in the court of Magistrate Sharon Fraser based on a written request from the Director […]
Following a guilty verdict in the Supreme Court last Thursday, today a convicted killer was sentenced to life behind bars. Justice Adolph Lucas handed down that fate to twenty year old Michael Fox just before three this afternoon. Fox had been found culpable of the fatal shooting of twenty one year old Sydney Bradley, which […]
In November 2004, a uniformed police officer walking alone at night was executed by a single gunshot to the head. In the days that followed the disturbing crime, his colleagues arrested a young man and charged him with the murder based on an eyewitness=s account of the incident. But when the case finally landed before […]
