The case of the undersized conchs continues to make haste slowly as it winds its way through the legal system. Today the case in Magistrate’s Court was once again adjourned, this time until January twenty-seventh. A deadline of December twentieth has been set, however, for the prosecution to disclose all its evidence to the defendant, […]
A decision in the Supreme Court today may mean an early Christmas for the nation’s telephone users. The ruling is complicated, but essentially Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh ruled that the stop order issued late last year by then Minister Responsible for Telecommunications, Ralph Fonseca, is valid, and the price increases made at that time are […]
Tonight a U.S. national who shot and killed two people is a free man. Charges of murder and attempted murder have been dismissed against forty-nine year Robert Moore, the caretaker at Frank’s Caye in the Sapodilla Range. Moore was charged following an incident on that caye on August eighth in which he fatally shot fifty-four […]
Seven Cuban men, who illegally landed on the Belizean coast near San Pedro earlier this month, today did their best to avoid repatriation. The men: Jaime Sanchez, Enrique Camacho, Ramon Rivero, Alejandro Maury, Roberto Miranda, Armando Quintana, and Luis Maquedo, appeared before Magistrate Margaret McKenzie. They all pleaded not guilty to the charge of failure […]
Belize’s cable operators won a victory today in their efforts to keep the copyright dogs at bay; ironically the challenge came from one of their own. Ramon Reyes of Star Limited, a Caye Caulker cable company, claimed he owned Belizean rights to networks like MTV, Discovery Channel, ESPN, and Nickelodeon, and when his fellow operators […]
Belize Telecommunications Limited received some bad news today in its campaign to overturn government’s contract with rival INTELCO. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Blackman ruled that the leave for judicial review granted by him on April sixteenth should be set aside, on the grounds that in its application B.T.L. failed to fully disclose all the facts […]
The case of the conch and the co-op is apparently back on track. After a few missteps, the case was finally called today before Magistrate Earl Jones. Emile Arguelles will be representing the Northern Fishermen Cooperative, which on October twenty-fourth was found by fisheries officers to be in possession of over eleven hundred undersized conch. […]
Two days after we reported that three fishermen were fined more than forty thousand dollars for possession of undersized conch, tonight, the cooperative busted on the same day for the same charge, has yet to see the inside of a courtroom. According to Northern Fishermen Cooperative’s Bobby Usher, management is still waiting to receive the […]
At the time, it was a cocaine bust that shocked the nation and ranked third on the list of major drug seizures: two thousand, five hundred and fifty-four pounds of the white lady. More than a year later, two brothers charged with drug trafficking for the possession of more than twelve hundred pounds of the […]
The two men accused of murdering four Belize City residents were back in Magistrate’s Court today. This morning, Patrick Robateau and Leslie Pipersburg were brought before Magistrate Dorothy Flowers as part of the legal formalities in their case, but the hearing was adjourned until September thirteenth. Accompanying the men was their attorney Simeon Sampson. Police […]
Xtra House Supermarket owner Jitendra Chawla, better known as Jack Charles is tonight having the last laugh after Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh awarded him a handsome twenty thousand dollars in damages for the breach of his constitutional rights by the comptroller of customs. The Chief Justice upheld attorney Dean Barrow’s contention that his clients constitutional […]
A Belize City man has been handed a sixteen year prison sentence for the rape of a thirty-two year old woman. A jury of six women and three men found Stanley Lewis guilty after several hours of deliberations, which ran until 8 o’clock last night. Lewis, who only gave a dock statement on the advice […]
Proceedings in the case of BACONGO versus the Government of Belize and BECOL continued in the Supreme Court today. This afternoon, Lois Young Barrow, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, presented her summation before Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh. Young-Barrow argued that breeches, both factual and procedural, concerning the environmental impact assessment done on the Chalillo Hydro […]
The legal battles surrounding the Chalillo dam continued today as the second judicial review sought by the environmental group BACONGO got underway in the Supreme Court. This afternoon, BACONGO attorney Lois Young Barrow appeared before Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh to present an overview of the laws governing the approval of environmental impact assessment plans by […]
Businessman Jitendra Chawla, better known as Jack Charles, who owns Xtra House Supermarket on Cemetery Road is out on two thousand, five hundred dollars bail plus one surety. Chawla appeared in Court number two this morning before Magistrate Dorothy Flowers where he pled not guilty to customs duties evasion, falsifying customs declarations, importing a restricted […]
The trial involving the Corozal bakery at odds with one of its neighbours continued this morning in the Supreme Court with a doctor presenting medical evidence. This morning, attorneys for the Ek family called Dr. Cardo Martinez to the stand to testify as to the health problems affecting the family, conditions the family alleges were […]
The trial of the baker versus his neighbour began in the Supreme Court today, the climax to a situation that has divided residents of Corozal town. Sixty-two year old Eugene Eck is suing seventy-three year old Rafael Velasquez for more than twenty thousand dollars in damages to his health and property, caused by the smoke […]
On Wednesday afternoon former Justice of the Supreme Court George Meerabux received the news that the appeal of his removal from the bench was unsuccessful. In upholding the decision of the Belize Advisory Council and subsequent ruling of Justice Christopher Blackman, the Court of Appeal has left Meerabux with just one alternative: a further appeal […]
The United Democratic Party today won a victory of sorts when the Court of Appeal granted a complete stay of execution of its judgement in the Bel-China land case. The same court had previously reversed a decision of the Supreme Court, ruling that the UDP acquired the land from government illegally. But after Attorney and […]
His removal from the bench became official in February, but former justice George Meerabux was back in court today, this time as an appellant. Attorneys Wilfred and Hubert Elrington appeared in the Court of Appeal this afternoon to contest their client’s dismissal. They argued on three grounds. Firstly, that the chairman of the tribunal appointed […]
The Belize Supreme Court is hearing an unprecedented case, that of Patrick Reyes, a man spared from death row by the Privy Council. Reyes shot and killed husband and wife Wayne and Evelyn Garbutt on April sixteenth, 1997, over a land dispute in Teakettle Village. He was convicted on two counts of murder and sentenced […]
And in a case of much swifter justice, twenty-three year old Wilhelm Kelly, the man accused of robbing the offices of Cayo’s Big H juice company on Thursday, has been sentenced to seven years in prison. While the Magistrate was at it, he also sentenced Kelly to an additional five years on a previous charge […]
The Chalillo dam came one step closer to reality today as an action in the Supreme Court brought by environmentalists was dismissed. BACONGO, the Belize Alliance of Conservation NGOs, sought judicial review of several decisions made by the Public Utilities Commission. These were the approval in January of a revised power purchase agreement between Belize […]
Belizean businessman Kevin Morris is a free man tonight, following a successful appeal of his order to be extradited to the United States. Morris was arrested in Belize at the request of the D.E.A., who claimed that he conspired to traffic cocaine in February 2001. Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord had ordered Morris’s extradition to the […]
This morning the trial of accused drug traffickers Jorge Moreno, Oscar Aguirre, Victor Carrasco and Zulema Molina got off to a late start and adjourned early. That left only an hour or so of court time, not enough for prosecution witness ASP David Henderson to be cross-examined. Henderson’s testimony revolved around the identification of the […]
