Belize acting PM urges measures be taken to protect integrity of police service

BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC – Acting Prime Minister Patrick Faber says measures must be taken to ensure that the police are not given a “black eye” by rogue cops after two police officers, including a senior officer, appeared in court earlier this week on drug related charges.

“Once there are human beings involved in any entity, there will be that element of wrongdoing at times. And so it puts a really black eye on the police if that is indeed the case.

“I believe that people are innocent until proven guilty, but if it is that police officers, especially the kind of senior ranking police officers that we’ve been hearing about are involved in that, then that is indeed sad and in fact we ought to be taking measures against such officers who are giving the department a black eye,” Faber told television viewers on Friday night.

Earlier this week, five people, including the senior police officer, were to re-appear in the Orange Walk Magistrate’s Court on November 1 after being charged in connection with the multi-million dollar drug bust last weekend involving a small aircraft that originated from Venezuela.

The police said that the aircraft with an estimated 126 pounds of cocaine with a street value of BDZ$14 million (One Belize dollar=US$0.49 cents) has since been seized.

The five, including two Mexicans, appeared before Senior Magistrate Aretha Ford on Thursday and bail was denied.

The five – Superintendent David Chi, Commanding Officer at the Orange Walk Police Station, Constable e Norman Anthony, 32-year-old carpenter, Peter Friesen, 31-year-old Eli Figueroa Nunez, a businessman from Mexico and 21 year-old Azariaz Manzano, also from Mexico.

They were charged with betment to importation of a controlled drug for purposely facilitating the importation of cocaine to Belize. They were also charged with conspiracy to land a plane at an unlicensed aerodrome, while Nunez and Manzano also face charges of drug trafficking. Police said they intend to charge more people with the crime of abetment.

Media reports said that the drug bust on Sunday occurred within days of leaked information that police had found a log book of flight coordinates for drug plane landings up north in an abandoned crash site.

Faber said that the reason why drug planes see Belize as a target is because the country is a small and does not have the ability to police the borders.

“It is evident that planes that land here and other transhipment that goes on, passes through Belize in an effort to get to the United States. If we were not geographically located here, that kind of trouble would not exist for us.

“And so we must always remember that and keep that in mind. I think it was Commissioner Whylie who said there are good cops and bad cops; even in our own families, there are some members that are wayward and some that are doing the right things. This is how it is,” Faber added.