The murders of fifty-two-year-old Francesca Matus and Drew Thomas DeVoursney remain under investigation by Corozal Police, with the assistance of the F.B.I. A suspect has been in custody for one week, but has still not been charged for the murders. Police have still not ascertained what when wrong two weeks ago after the Canadian-American couple […]
Two of the four men alleged to be involved in the kidnapping and robbery of three young men in Corozal last week were arraigned on Monday in the Corozal Magistrate’s Court. They are twenty-three year-old Jason Espinoza and forty-two-year-old Elio Lopez for three counts of kidnapping and three counts of robbery. On May third in […]
Police have made an arrest in a shooting in the city of Telswin Lara on Sunday on Arlington Drive. This morning, eighteen-year-old Dane Khalil Gillett, a resident of Pinks Alley, Belize City was taken to the Belize City Magistrate’s Court where he appeared before Magistrate Carlon Mendoza and was read two criminal and indictable offenses […]
A Turkish national employed with the Princess Hotel and Casino was today arraigned on a single charge of using threatening words against his common-law wife, a Guyanese cosmetologist. She reported to police that her husband threatened to shoot her over the weekend. Ozcan Aydogdu appeared before Magistrate Carlon Mendoza for threatening his wife, Sady Aydogdu […]
On Wednesday, former Minister of State for Immigration and Nationality, Elvin Penner, is to be questioned by the six members of the Senate Special Select Committee. It makes for high stakes and high drama especially as many of the witnesses that have gone before him have implicated him by name as the moving hand behind […]
Canadian national John DeShaies remains in police lockup following his arraignment on Friday, when he was denied bail in the Independence Magistrate Court. He appeared in court for charges of theft and handling stolen goods of over fifty-seven thousand dollars’ worth of electronics from the Placencia Casino, has obtained legal representation. But instead of being […]
This morning, Supreme Court Justice Courtney Abel dropped the case against Hilmar Alamilla, associate of Andre Vega and the former deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega, as it relates to a claim for return of compensation of four hundred thousand Belize dollars to Government. Alamilla was named as the man who originally bought just over an […]
Dorian Blair, one of two Belize City men recently charged for impersonating a police officer, was today before the Supreme Court for a bail hearing, but the hearing was moved to May twelfth at the request of his attorney, Oscar Selgado. Before Blair left the stand, Justice Antoinette Moore asked him how he was doing […]
A family dispute between siblings and their mother ended up in court today with the arraignment of Rayford Saldano for wounding his sister Joleen Saldano. She reportedly put him out of their mother’s house while he demanded the return of one hundred and eighty dollars in rent and utility money he had paid to his […]
News Five can confirm tonight that there’s a team of F.B.I. agents in Belize investigating the double murders of one of their own, ex-U.S. marine thirty-six-year-old Drew Thomas DeVoursney and his girlfriend, fifty-two-year-old Canadian national Francesca Matus. The couple was found dead inside a cane field in the outskirts of Chan Chen Village, Corozal District […]
He said it was accidental, but the magistrate didn’t believe him. As a result, fifty-five-year-old Louis Tucker will remain behind bars for five years. Tucker was convicted of sexual assault of a woman in her twenties. At trial today, the accuser told Chief Magistrate Ann-Marie Smith that she moved out of Tucker’s way as she […]
Twenty-eight year old Wilhelm Gillette was today acquitted of the murder of twenty-one year old Norval Belisle, stabbed to death in the parking lot of La Cabana Club in the Las Flores area of Belmopan in 2015. Gillette was tried alone by Justice Antoinette Moore in April in Belmopan. In her ruling today, Justice Moore […]
In January, the Central Bank (International Immunities) Act and the Crown Proceedings (Amendment) Act were passed by Parliament. The former is intended to protect Belize’s foreign reserves in the Bank from poaching by companies claiming arbitral awards, including Caribbean Investment Holdings Limited. C.I.H.L. charges that the legislation’s effect is to clearly attempt to intimidate and […]
Former Minister of State with responsibility for Immigration and Nationality, Elvin Penner, is confirmed to be testifying before the Senate Special Select Committee next Wednesday. It has been a long time – in fact, nearly five years – since he was fired from Cabinet by Prime Minister Dean Barrow for facilitating South Korean fugitive businessman […]
Police busted four men in a taxi in which they found a point thirty-eight revolver on Wednesday on Arlington Drive, Belize City. The taxi, a Dodge Caravan, was being driven by fifty-six-year- old Clive Smith; the passengers were Aaron Flowers, Elwin Pollard and Kendale Green. By this morning, the group appeared before Senior Magistrate Sharon […]
The Senate Special Select Committee’s public hearing at the National Assembly this morning was truncated due to logistical issues with bringing witnesses to Belmopan. The sole witness to testify is actually a return witness, Rodolfo Bol. He manages the Immigration Department information technology network and was the system manager during the time of the audit […]
What does this mean for what happened with the Won Hong Kim passport? The Department’s records state that a file was opened just before eleven in the morning and closed about one in the afternoon, after which it was printed and distributed, though it did not reach its intended destination. The Senators honed in on […]
Bol also told the Senate panel about the capability of foreign embassies in the U.S. and elsewhere that had limited access to the main system in Belmopan that allowed for picture taking and other preliminary duties prior to processing in Belmopan. He was questioned about a particular case of which authorities were aware in which […]
Twenty-four-year-old Timothy Thurton was arrested and charged last week with the murder of seventeen-year-old minor, Brandon Randy Bradley. He appeared unrepresented before Magistrate Carlon Mendoza for arraignment this afternoon. After being read the charge, no plea was taken and Thurton was remanded to prison until July fourth, 2017. The ITVET student and Lords’ Bank village […]
After five months behind prison bars awaiting his fate, thirty-one-year-old Lorenzo Smith Junior, accused of the murder of his prison inmate, Alfonso Eck, was found guilty of the crime today. Justice Troadio Gonzalez has deferred sentencing for May fifth, 2017. Smith Junior was accused of murder after Eck who found dead inside his cell on […]
Omar Phillips worked as a Data Entry Clerk for the Immigration Department from 2009 to 2013, when the Won Hong Kim scandal broke, and his role became known. He and two other officers, Erwin Robinson and Sharon Neal, were suspended from their jobs. They were also taken before the Public Service Commission for a hearing. […]
According to Phillips, Immigration officers, particularly at lower levels, receive only the most basic training in the various tasks to which they are assigned on a daily basis. For data entry and capture, that is as simple as looking at the forms cursorily without attention to specific detail, and passing them on. Senator Mark Lizarraga […]
As we reported on Wednesday, retired Immigration Officer Therese Chavarria confirmed that in at least two or three cases, with permission from senior officials, she was able to fool the passport system into accepting a picture of someone who did not appear to take the photograph in person. Her method was basic: she simply printed […]
The Senate Special Select Committee has been soliciting most attendees of the public hearings for their ideas on how the Immigration Department can be improved. While it has become clear that a culture of corruption and hustling pervaded the Department, the will to remove it has been absent. As a public officer for more than […]
There is a rape conviction to report tonight. In January 2015, a Dangriga man met a woman walking on the road side heading into the town to pick up a package. He offered her a ride to the Benguche area, but things went awfully wrong. The woman said she thought the vehicle hit something so […]
