Persuaded by the arguments of then-People’s United Party leader Francis Fonseca, Chief Justice of Belize Kenneth Benjamin ordered Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie by a writ of mandamus to criminally investigate the Won Hong Kim passport scandal and the man at its center, former Minister of State Elvin Penner. His prior refusal to investigate, the […]
The implication raised by ex-Superintendent Julio Valdez during his testimony on Wednesday was that someone above him suggested that he direct his energy to investigating strictly how Arthur Saldivar’s purloined files went missing from the Immigration Department and not what was in them – as Valdez put it, ignoring a murder at a burglary scene. […]
A Florida national is headed to jail for using hidden Belize accounts to conspire to commit tax and bank fraud. Forty-eight-year-old Casey Padula of Port Charlotte, Florida, pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced this week to fifty-seven months imprisonment; three years of supervised release; a fine of one hundred thousand U.S. dollars and payment […]
In 2014, Retired Superintendent of Police Julio Valdez, then-deputy of National Crimes Investigation Branch, wrote the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl-Lynn Vidal, concerning his investigation into a trove of files removed from the Immigration Department in October of 2013, at the height of the Elvin Penner scandal. Those files were retrieved from attorney-at-law Arthur Saldivar […]
The former senior cop stated that this branch of the investigation came about after his colleagues in Belize City spoke with Saldivar and retrieved the files. But when he attempted to access the original files at the Department, Valdez told the Committee, he was denied because an internal Immigration audit was underway and what became […]
The only man above Valdez, indeed above all officers in the Police Department, is Commissioner Allen Whylie. Appointed in 2013, he was previously C.E.O. in the Ministry of National Security, and later Defence and Immigration when it was split between 2010 and 2012. Appearing this afternoon, he was confronted with Valdez’s testimony and staunchly maintained […]
The Commissioner blames ‘media spin’ for the misunderstanding and what he says is his subsequent decision to withdraw from any administrative handling of either the ‘missing files’ case or the Won Hong Kim case. But at the end of the day, he conceded that even he does not know how the former case turned out […]
But what was among that list of files handed over? Valdez read a fairly long list of nationality files and accompanying documents for some familiar names such as Yiu-Pang Chen and Quoc Vinh Truong who would show up in the Audit Report. What he noticed from his long experience as a cop, including stints commanding […]
Speaking of background checks, were the Police Department or Ministry of Immigration consulted about the Cabinet’s decision to stop Special Branch police from carrying out the standard background checks on applicants for nationality? Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie indicated that he was not even sure if the check was a legal requirement or merely an […]
The Senate hearing continued into this afternoon where the Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie gave testimony. The other major investigation to be carried out by the Police Department was in relation to Won Hong Kim. Auditor General Dorothy Bradley is on record as asking for police investigation into the irregularities that caused the fugitive businessman […]
Commissioner of Police Allen Whylie has been seen to be dragging his feet on investigating the allegations within the Auditor General’s Report. He recently stated that he would wait on instructions from the Director of Public Prosecutions and the conclusion of the Senate Inquiry, even though he conceded that he doesn’t have to. But according […]
On Tuesday, police formally arrested and charged forty-eight-year-old Ernesto Cadle for manslaughter by negligence and causing the death by careless conduct of sixty-two-year-old Benedicto Mendez. The Belizean taxi driver of Cowpen Village was also slapped with charges of Driving an Unlicensed Motor Vehicle, Driving a Motor Vehicle with Alcohol Concentration above the Prescribed Limit and […]
This afternoon, CIB personnel escorted two of their own to court to be arraigned for extortion. Corporal Marvin Salam, a police officer of Corozal, along with Corporal Anthony Blair of the Ladyville area, appeared before Magistrate Carlon Mendoza. The duo is stationed at the Racoon Street Police station in Belize City. Allegations are that on […]
A Corozal along with a Belize City man is tonight out on bail after they were arraigned for drug trafficking. Both were busted on Tuesday with almost four and a half pounds of weed in the Port Loyola area of Belize City. Just before midday, a patrol on Louise Bevans Street, in the south side […]
The bail application for David and Anke Doehm, the American couple charged with cruelty to late thirteen-year-old daughter Faye Lin Cannon, will be heard at the Supreme Court on Friday. Attorney for David Doehm, Richard ‘Dickie’ Bradley, confirmed this afternoon to News Five that he and Anke’s attorney, Senior Counsel Ellis Arnold, have filed their […]
Belize City resident, Keith Middleton, the ex- boyfriend of a woman attacked with a screw driver, is spending his first night on lock down at the Belize Central Prison after he was denied bail this morning for two criminal offenses. Middleton appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann-Marie Smith for the offenses of aggravated assault with a […]
Seventeen days after his murder, police believe they have cracked the murder of Bangladeshi national, twenty-nine-year-old Abdush Salam. This morning, a twenty-three-year-old man from the Toledo District was arraigned for Salam’s murder which occurred on July first, 2017 inside his home. Juan Roberto Choc from Jordan, Toledo appeared before Senior Magistrate Sharon Fraser and was […]
The Caribbean Court of Justice ordered this morning that three men, who were acquitted of the murder of B.D.F. soldier James Noralez, are to be retried for the same crime. Orel Leslie Junior, Tyrone Meighan and Brandon Baptist are tonight back behind bars at the Central Prison in Hattieville. The trio was freed of the […]
Tonight, a Bomba resident is also behind bars for two counts of sexual assault upon an eleven-year-old student of northern Belize. Forty-year-old Jorge Cerraras, a farmer of the village in the Belize District, was arraigned before Senior Magistrate Sharon Fraser and pleaded not guilty to both charges. Allegations are that on two separate occasions, in […]
Twenty-year-old Melchor de Mencos, Peten resident Marlon Benedicto Portillo, has been charged for the offenses of “kept ammunition without a gun license” and “kept firearm without a gun license.” The Guatemalan national is one of two bandits that tried to steal a Toyota Hilux belonging to Omar Jimenez back on July eighth. An alert Jimenez […]
Forensic examiner Orlando Vera was back in court today as he continues to seek bail ahead of an appeal of his June first conviction for abetment to pervert the course of justice. Supreme Court Justice Herbert Lord has been hearing the case and made several orders to expedite the hearing of the appeal, but it […]
David and Anke Doehm were escorted to the Magistrate Court in Belize this afternoon for arraignment. The American couple has been under investigation since last week after their adopted daughter Faye Lin Cannon was found dead in their apartment. The thirteen-year-old died of compression to the chest, but there is additional information that the young […]
As we told you on Wednesday, David Doehm is not the adoptive father of the Faye Lin and her three siblings. In court today it was revealed that David Cannon, Anke’s ex-husband, adopted the children while they were together. Cannon traveled to Belize on various occasions to visit his daughters. Cannon also provided his ex-wife […]
Tonight we have more from Wednesday’s public hearing of the Senate Special Select Committee starting with Minister of Tourism and Belize Rural South area representative Manuel Heredia Junior. In the case of the fifty-two visas reported in the Auditor General’s report which Heredia took to San Pedro Town, he named the officer in charge in […]
Heredia also conceded during his testimony that he did not have specific authority to transfer packages from the Immigration Department’s main office in Belmopan to its sub-office in San Pedro Town, and vice versa. While he maintains that he was trusted by both P.U.P. and U.D.P. administrations since taking office in 1994 and never broke […]
