Since the Auditor General’s Report 2011-2013 was completed, many questions remain unanswered as to aspects of the country’s migration plans and efforts. Belize does not at present have a comprehensive policy on migration, which would set out the country’s vision for addressing its role in business, tourism and with regard to refugee status. According to […]
Convicted prisoner, thirty-nine year old , was in court today for another offence. Already facing time behind bars for burglary and kept firearm offenses, Bailey today changed his not guilty plea to guilty for escaping from lawful custody while at Precinct Three in January of this year. This morning, Bailey appeared before Chief Magistrate, Sharon […]
Bail applications for several other persons were dealt with in the court of Justice Herbert Lord. In the case of nineteen-year-old Marvin Dominguez, a Salvadoran national who was remanded into custody on a charge of aggravated assault with a firearm, bail was denied. Crown Counsel Jackie Willoughby, who represented objected on the ground that Dominguez […]
In the Orange Walk Supreme Court before Justice Herbert Lord, Edwin Castillo was convicted for the murder of his friend Javier Ack. The incident occurred back in mid-June 2012 in the village of Yo Creek. Both young men were friends but on that fatal day, following an argument while they socialized under a lime tree […]
Forty-two-year-old Ruben “Bird’’ Heredia is in trouble with the law for a fine of ten thousand dollars which he neglected to pay by July thirty-first for a conviction of drug trafficking. Heredia appeared today for a new matter before Magistrate Michelle Trapp and pleaded guilty to possession of point two grams of cocaine. That’s when […]
Police have made a significant arrest in the murder of Daniel Anderson who was killed over the weekend. Late this afternoon, Steve Martin Moss, a twenty-three-year-old stevedore of Queen Charlotte Street, appeared before Chief Magistrate Sharon Fraser. Moss was charged with one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and two counts of Use […]
After four sessions, the Senate Special Select Committee finished its questioning of Director of Immigration Diana Locke this afternoon at the National Assembly. Among the first things discussed was the phenomenon revealed last week of taxi drivers holding the numbers for service at the Immigration Department and seeking favour with visitors. Locke discussed a recent […]
The Committee has been questioning Locke on how the department intends to implement certain recommendations of the Auditor General. While some are easier implemented than others, there are some recommendations that will require assistance further afield. One example is the use of bogus stamps under the seal of the Immigration Department. Most of these have […]
Another important recommendation is the installation of background checks for persons applying for nationality. The Immigration Department, according to Director Diana Locke, is now at least partially linked to the International Criminal Police Organization or Interpol and is no longer accepting checks of criminal records solely from the Criminal Investigation Branch. But the director was […]
In the court of Chief Magistrate Sharon Fraser, twenty-three-year-old Adelma Maximo, a student at Gwen Lizarraga Evening School, was charged with wounding. Maximo wanted to plead guilty with an explanation, but the Chief Magistrate entered an equivocal plea of not guilty when she told the court that it was her accuser, Yasmin Morgan, who hit […]
There’s a break in Friday’s murder of Marcel Samuels. Eighteen-year-old Blake Norman Lewis, a construction worker of Myvette Street in Hattieville Village, was arrested and charged for the murder of the sixty-two-year-old jeweler and butcher of Cemetery Lane in Belize City. This afternoon, Lewis appeared before Chief Magistrate Sharon Fraser and read a single charge […]
On Thursday we reported on a video that shows a man and a police officer engaged in a physical altercation. Well, that man has since been charged with a slew of offenses for assaulting a police officer. He has been identified as twenty-four-year-old Delbert Palacio, a security guard from North Creek. Palacio was arraigned this […]
Also in court this morning, Santa Elena resident Steven Parham, a Corporal of Police, was arraigned for discharging his firearm in a public place and for the aggravated assault upon Christine Gentle, an employee of New Asia Restaurant. Parham was initially remanded to prison by Magistrate Michelle Trapp, but by one-fifteen this afternoon, Supreme Court […]
Earlier this week, we reported on the interception of four men from Orange Walk who were found in possession of illegally harvested mahogany logs. The Forest Department says that on Thursday forty-seven-year-old Guinea Grass resident; Pablo Valladarez was fined twenty-two thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight dollars after he was found guilty for the unlawful possession […]
The majority of the recommendations made by the Senate Special Select Committee is either accepted or in some cases has already been implemented in one form or another. But Director of Immigration Diana Locke told the committee on Wednesday that some work needs to be done to address the recommendation that the Ministry of Immigration […]
It has been a particular practice of Business Community Senator Mark Lizarraga to go through the Auditor General’s recommendations across her three-volume report with all of the witnesses, where possible, at each hearing. But very few of those witnesses are in a position to do much about it. That is not the case with Director […]
Because of the relationship between Belize and Guatemala, the road to acquiring Belizean citizenship by Guatemalans is somewhat complicated. The Guatemalan national must sign a renunciation form in Belize and complete the Belizean nationality process. But what is often not known is that the renunciation must also go through in Guatemala, and the local embassy […]
Earlier this year, there were rumblings in the Immigration Department after twenty-nine officers were slated for promotion despite concerns about their worth. Minister of State Beverly Williams assured News Five at the time that there would be no issue and that there was no discrimination. Months later, immigration staff is complaining about not having received […]
The Senate Special Select Committee resumed after a one-week holiday break with Director of Immigration, Diana Locke, continuing her testimony. For the past two sessions she has been extensively reviewing the Department’s activities since the Auditor General’s Report was compiled beginning in 2013, and the efforts at reform that the department has taken. For the […]
Another example of supposed hustling extends beyond Immigration to the Border Management Agency under the Ministry of Tourism. There have been reports that officers of that agency have assessed extra fees to those crossing into Belize from the Western Border. While it has not been determined if an incident captured on camera involves an Immigration […]
Several current Ministers of Government have been faulted for offering and signing recommendations to facilitate persons getting passports, visas and other services. Some have gone even further, from couriering to, as alleged of ex-Minister Elvin Penner, facilitating select persons including Won Hong Kim, who never set foot in Belize. All have denied it, but on […]
Among the recommendations by the Auditor General in her report is the complete revocation, pending investigation, of all nationality certificates and passports issued to the persons named in the report that were granted between 2011 and 2013. It’s a measure some, including Director of Immigration Diana Locke, deems drastic. The man who helped start it […]
Business Community Senator Mark Lizarraga acted as chair of the Senate Hearings today in place of Aldo Salazar, whom he said had a prior commitment. On the matter of the ex-ministers, whom he would not name, but whom we have identified as from Cayo and Dangriga, acting as Immigration agents, he cried shame. Lizarraga says […]
Are ordinary Belizeans somewhat partly to blame for the state of affairs at the Immigration Department? Is our thirst for accelerated service contributing to the “culture of corruption” so extensively discussed at the Senate Committee hearings? While not saying so outright, Director of Immigration Diana Locke acknowledged that some of the Department’s problems trace back […]
Earlier today, a group of four illegal loggers appeared in the Orange Walk Magistrate’s Court where each man was formally charged for unlawfully harvesting as many as thirty-two pieces of mahogany logs. Catalino Copo, Nelson Mosa, Pablo Valladarez and Aurelio Mai were busted in the vicinity of the Old Northern Highway on Sunday afternoon. The […]
