On Tuesday, Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin, who, in August, authored the historic decision on Section Fifty-three of the Criminal Code of Belize, denied the application for leave to appeal made by the National Evangelical Association of Belize, who wanted to join the case as an interested party. The Chief Justice refused Anthony Sylvestre, holding brief […]
The Government, represented by the Attorney General, initially chose not to appeal the decision at all, provoking fierce reaction from Belize’s more conservative elements. It was only after some protest that it chose to go after a narrow point, the decision of the Chief Justice to agree that sex as defined in Belize’s Constitution and […]
Thirty-one year old Stephanie Ortiz, and her common-law husband, forty-one year old Solomon Francis Alvarez were taken to court late on Monday afternoon to answer to a very unusual charge of allowing a child to be unsupervised. The fourteen-year-old child was found wandering before eleven on Monday night on Glen Street, Belize City. The couple […]
American Bradley Pauman, has been in the news for over a year as the businessman accused putting a hit on fellow businessman and neighbour Michael Modiri. He was back in court again today, this time he was asking to be handed back his passport which the court has instructed him to surrender as a condition for […]
Well known Belizean tailor, sixty-six year old Felipe Santiago Montejo, is a free man tonight after the charge of sexual assault of a minor was struck out in court today. Montejo’s trial was set for this morning before the Chief Magistrate Anne Marie Smith. He was accused of molesting a fourteen year old girl back […]
Another man also walked free of a sexual crime today. Only in the case of Long Caye resident, Pedro Trujeque, he was reminded that the rape charge against him can still be brought back. Today in court, the D.P.P.’s office had no choice but to file a nolle prosequi in the rape case against Trujeque […]
Sixty-seven million U.S. dollars – that’s how much money the Government of Belize must find to satisfy the first payment of the Belize Telemedia Limited Arbitration Award handed down on June twenty-eighth. The Government originally made partial payment in Belize dollars, to which Dunkeld International Investments and the B.T.L. Employees’ Trust, the former owners of […]
The discovery of a shift in the ratio of the award may imperil the Government’s stated intent to use a portion of the award for capital projects in Belize with the approval of Dunkeld. But both sides believe the compromise that was originally worked out can still be adhered to. Denys Barrow, Attorney for […]
So, what’s Government’s reaction to this latest decision? This afternoon, G.O.B. issued a statement officially expressing its disappointment in the C.C.J. decision. It points out that, “The overall quantum of the Arbitral Award has not been increased in any wise altered; however G.O.B. now has to pay ten percent more of that award in U.S. […]
The media caught up with the Leader of the Opposition today at a separate P.U.P. event. John Briceño has repeatedly shared his discontent with the B.T.L. settlement and has even called the agreement, “the worst decision by a Government in modern Belizean history.” So following today’s ruling by the CCJ, we sought his reaction. […]
More than eighteen persons face charges in connection with the Sarkis Abou-Nehra home invasion which occurred almost a year ago, in December 2015, in Burrell Boom where the diplomat’s maid was raped as she worked at her boss’s house. The intruders also ransacked the diplomat’s house and stole a number of items including liquors and […]
Former murder suspect Bartholomew Lucas has been charged with use of deadly means of harm, grievous harm and aggravated assault with a firearm in connection with a shooting in Pink’s Alley on Sunday, September twenty-fourth. Michael Usher was standing in front of a house in the area when he saw Lucas, well-known to him, walking […]
Tonight, forty-year old maintenance worker, Jose Luis Gonzalez of the West Lake Community on the Western Highway is on remand at the Belize Central Prison accused of touching a minor inappropriately on her breast. The alleged victim is eleven years old. This morning, Gonzalez appeared before Chief Magistrate Anne Marie Smith in court and pleaded […]
Two brothers are jailed after repeat fishing offences. Corozal fishermen from Chunox Village, twenty-five year old Ergil Patt and twenty-four year old Marvin Patt were sentenced to six and seven months respectively. The Patt brothers and another man were charged separately for illegal entry and illegal fishing inside the Half Moon Caye Natural Monument. The […]
Moses Sulph has been cleared of rape. Back in February 2013, Sulph was accused of raping a UB student at a house in Belmopan. He had denied the charge and maintained that he consensual sex with the woman. Today, Sulph stopped by our News Five studios to say that he feels vindicated after he was […]
A murder case fell apart in the Supreme Court before Justice Troadio Gonzalez on Monday. Thirty-one year old Erasmo Lino walked from the murder of twenty-four year old Laurencio Ho Junior. Lino was charged back in March 2011 for killing his Roaring Creek neighbour, who met his death while celebrating his birthday. The D.P.P.’s office […]
In court today, a suspect in the robbery of Kyrston Hulse, the son of the Minister of Home Affairs, was robbed at gunpoint on September twenty-second on Marine Parade Boulevard, Belize City. Kryston was in the company of his girlfriend celebrating his birthday, when he was robbed at gunpoint of his mother’s four-Runner SUV vehicle. […]
In October of 2015, a twenty-three year old resident accused a forty-seven-year old known criminal figure of Belize City, of sodomizing him. The matter has just come up in court where it was learnt that the alleged victim was left traumatized. Basil Willis, aka “ET,” a resident of Black Orchid Street, Saint Martin’s de Porres […]
A Belize City man found himself between a hard place and a rock when a gun was found at the house he is sharing with his brother. The decision which twenty-four year old Steven Bradley, a resident of Sittee Street, Belize City had to make today saved his brother, twenty-one year old Kadeem Bradley, from […]
Magistrate Deborah Rogers today found thirty-nine year old Calvin Lauriano and one of his passengers, Marlon Chaneck, a resident of Santa Elena, Cayo, guilty of drug trafficking. On June seventeenth, 2015, police at a checkpoint found the two men, who were along with two women, in possession of one hundred and forty-eight pounds of marijuana […]
Taxi driver, Alfred Lamb did not follow the golden rule of don’t drink and drive. He was found to have consumed more than twice the amount of alcohol than prescribed by law and as a consequence has been banned from driving for six months. Lamb was also fined five hundred dollars for the offense. He […]
A three-judge panel of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) this morning advised attorneys representing Dunkeld International Investments, The B.T.L. Employees Trust and the Government of Belize to work out with all possible speed the settlement of the amount due from the government to the former shareholders of Belize Telemedia. Otherwise the court will step […]
The Government has said that the tribunal divided the award into a forty-sixty ratio; forty percent of the total representing the non-Accommodation Agreement portion and sixty percent representing the Accommodation Agreement portion. But government’s interpretation is that the lion’s share of the total figure is owed in Belize dollars and can only be spent to […]
It was left to Senior Counsel Denys Barrow to defend Government’s actions. He explained that Government assumed that whatever was left in the second payment would be sufficient to cover the value of the accommodation, but it is not turning out that way. Now government is on the hook to pay the first fifty percent […]
There were differing views on whether the Government can adhere to paying the remaining portion of the award due to Dunkeld in U.S. dollars, and should have paid the first instalment in Greenbacks. As we previously reported, the Central Bank’s Governor, Glenford Ysaguirre, wrote Financial Secretary Joseph Waight on July twenty-second, reporting that, “The Dunkeld […]
