The Immigration Department has an entrenched culture of corruption and hustling, from the top of the ladder to the bottom. That is what former administrative officer in the Department Teresita Castellanos bravely said at Wednesday’s public hearings of the Senate Special Select Committee. The issue of this culture has been brought up to multiple visitors […]
Teresita Castellanos is a seasoned public officer. She provided scandalous details on Wednesday at the Senate hearings about the rot at the Immigration Department. She says she has been a public officer for thirty years and until she went to the Department of Immigration in 2011, she had said she only heard about the goings-on […]
On Wednesday we told you of the run-in between then-port commander in charge of Immigration Services in Belmopan, George Reynolds, and Patrick Tillett, financial controller of the Belize City Council, at Reynolds’ Belmopan office. Tillett and former deputy Mayor Eric Chang had come into possession of eight missing visa foils, which were later learned to […]
George Reynolds was less circumspect than his former colleague Teresita Castellanos on the issue of a culture of corruption in the Department. He said that as far as his work was concerned he did it and there were no issues. But he does agree that the Department needs specific guidelines and that the higher-ups cannot […]
The public hearings of the Senate Special Select Committee on Immigration have moved into high gear and today under oath, a bombshell was dropped from an unexpected corner. In the first six sessions of the Committee, from the end of November to the end of January, not counting holidays and other breaks, just three witnesses […]
Castellanos went on to accuse immigration officers of treating ‘civilian’ officers like herself as ‘intruders’ at the Department and even cannibalizing their own who were doing the right thing. She added that efforts by Maria Marin as Acting Director, among others, to clean up the Department were undercut by the lack of support from the […]
While the cases of Won Hong Kim and the eight visa foils are dominating recent headlines, there was no shortage of scandal at the Immigration Department that necessitated immigration officers being taken before the Public Service Commission for various offenses. At today’s hearing, Teresita Castellanos charged that the Department made recommendations for pursuing such matters […]
The second witness to appear at the Senate Special Select Committee this afternoon was George Reynolds. He is entering his twenty-seventh year with the Immigration Department and in 2013 was the Port Commander in charge of Immigration Services at the Department’s Belmopan headquarters, in charge of visas and other temporary permits such as for students […]
As a senior man in the Immigration Department, George Reynolds saw his share of important people coming in and out – even a Minister or two. But he told the Senate Special Select Committee that he personally saw little of them in his area and their interventions played a role. He also commented on the […]
From the senate to the courts…Belize’s highest court, the Caribbean Court of Justice, has ordered changes to the appointment of judges to the Court of Appeal. Today, the CCJ dismissed a claim by the Bar Association of Belize against the Attorney General concerning an amendment to the Constitution on the appointment and tenure of judges, […]
The Prime Minister currently has power to recommend the appointment of judges to the Court of Appeal, after consulting with the Leader of the Opposition, while the Judicial and Legal Services Commission has power over appointments to the Supreme Court. More importantly, by making only recommendations and not orders, Marshalleck concedes that only when the […]
As we reported earlier, the Senate Special Select Committee has called multiple witnesses on several occasions for public hearings in the past few weeks. While there have been rescheduling of witnesses due to various circumstances, only one invited witness, Immigration Clerk Ady Pacheco, has been unable to attend due to complications of pregnancy, and no […]
Is this the end of the line as far as the matter is concerned? Chairman Salazar said the Committee is considering its options and has not ruled out litigation, although the details are to be worked out privately. But how will this impact any findings of the Committee in relation to the pair and can […]
The case against three men, who shot a police officer, fell apart today two weeks after it begun before Justice Adolph Lucas. The shooting of Police Constable Nigel White occurred on March twenty-six 2011 while he was on duty at the Belama Phase Two police station on Albert Hoy Street. The alleged brazen gunman was […]
Two others also walked free today of a charge of attempted murder when the office of the D.P.P. entered a case of nolle prosequi. They are notorious figures, Tyrone Meighan and Osman Mitchell, both of Belize City. According to the crown, the nolle prosequi was necessary due to the circumstances involving the witnesses in the […]
Former General Manager of the La Inmaculada Credit Union in Orange Walk has filed a lawsuit against the Governor of the Central Bank of Belize for her wrongful termination after twenty-seven years of service with the credit union. Back in July of 2015, the credit union cut ties with Yolanda Gomez, after she was placed […]
A fifty-six-year-old man was slapped with a single charge of sexual assault upon a seven-year-old child. Franz Hamilton was remanded to prison today when he appeared in court to answer to a sexual assault charge after he touched a child on the bottom. The child, in the presence of her mother, informed a social worker […]
News Five has been reporting on the case of Orange Walk resident Janine Vega and Laura and Julio Blanco of Pay Day and EZY Loans Pawning. Vega attempted to satisfy repayments in full for two separate loans totalling three thousand, five hundred dollars, for which collateral was a thirty-acre cane field property in Indian Hill […]
A decade-old murder case has ended in a plea of manslaughter in the court of Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin in the Supreme Court. Danny Elvis Ku was alleged to have butchered his wife, Nurse Anna Marie Magdalena Vasco to death in 2006, slashing her throat with a blade and stabbing her in the chest as […]
The time is drawing nearer for William Alexander “Danny” Mason and his accused cohorts to learn their fate. A preliminary inquiry into the indictable charges of murder, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the separate matters of businessman David Dodd and the late Pastor Llewellyn Lucas is scheduled for later […]
A precedent-setting judgment in the Supreme Court, issued on Monday, has put key restrictions on moneylenders inclined to exact excess monies from their desperate and overburdened customers. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Young has ordered Laura and Julio Blanco of Pay Day and EZY Loans Pawning, located in Orange Walk Town, to return a thirty-acre cane […]
Today’s interview with Perera and Arthurs widely covered the issue of pawnshops’ and moneylenders’ activities in Belize. While so-called “loan sharks” operating without a license are illegal as of law, those operating with licenses are governed by specific rules, which are not always enforced. The attorneys say this is just the start of what they […]
Interdicted police officer, Urbie Alamilla, who back in June 2016 was charged with discharging a firearm in the Jade Restaurant located between miles eight and nine on the Phillip Goldson Highway, is home free tonight. Today, the prosecution chose not to offer any evidence at what was expected to be his trial in the matter. […]
Police believe that twenty-seven-year old Enfield Fitzgibbon is the gunman who pulled the trigger in the murder of nineteen-year-old Keimar Nicholas. Nicholas was shot on the night of January twenty-third, 2017 in the vicinity of Lindo’s Alley in the Conch Shell Bay area, Belize City and succumbed on February third. Late on Tuesday, Fitzgibbon was taken […]
An uncle and nephew charged with illegal possession of female hicatee turtles and hicatee nets were freed of four charges today before a planned trial. Magistrate Carlon Mendoza agreed with defense attorney Leeroy Banner that the Fisheries Department officials should not get another adjournment in the case of fifty-six-year-old Goldburn Seguro, and his nephew, twenty-two-year-old Hilberto Stanford Seguro. […]
