By Breaking Belize News Staff: After one year, one month, three weeks and two days on remand, 23-year-old Peter Amado Lara is a free man, following the discontinuation of a murder charge against him.
Lara appeared in the High Court before Justice Derick Sylvester on Monday, where his trial was scheduled to commence. However, the proceedings came to an abrupt end after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) entered a nolle prosequi, effectively discontinuing the case. No reason was given by the Crown for the decision.
Lara, who was 22 at the time of his arraignment on Tuesday, January 28, 2025, had been charged with the shooting murder of 24-year-old Mark Anthony Leslie Waight and the attempted murder of Waight’s cousin, Francis Herbert.
With no other pending matters before the court, Lara was briefly detained in the holding area before being officially informed that he was free to go. He had been remanded at the Belize Central Prison for the duration of the case.
The charges stemmed from a deadly shooting on Saturday, January 25, 2025, on Central American Boulevard. What reportedly began as socializing among a group of individuals ended in gunfire.
According to police, at around 10:00 p.m., officers responded to reports of a shooting in front of #3333 Central American Boulevard. Upon arrival, they found 24-year-old Mark Waight, also known as “Peto,” a fisherman, partially submerged in a nearby drain with fatal injuries.
A second victim, 33-year-old Francine Herbert, sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was rushed to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital for treatment. Residents reported hearing more than a dozen shots.
Police investigations revealed that an argument had broken out among a group socializing outside the residence shortly before the shooting. During the altercation, someone opened fire, fatally wounding Waight. Several expended shells were recovered from the scene, and surveillance cameras in the area were identified and reviewed as part of the investigation.
Herbert had previously been the victim of gun violence; her five-year-old daughter, Kia Herbert, was killed in a separate shooting incident years earlier.
Waight, who was the father of a three-month-old baby, was well known to police and had appeared in the news on several occasions. In 2019, he was acquitted of two charges. In June of that year, he walked free from the murder of Amandala journalist Kareem Clarke, and in December 2019, he was acquitted of an attempted murder charge in connection with the 2015 shooting of Jamilia Neal.
With the Crown’s decision to discontinue the case, Lara’s chapter in this matter has come to a close—for now.
The post Peter Lara walks free from Mark Waight murder charge after over a year on remand appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
By Breaking Belize News Staff: After one year, one month, three weeks and two days on remand, 23-year-old Peter Amado Lara is a free man, following the discontinuation of a murder charge against him. Lara appeared in the High Court before Justice Derick Sylvester on Monday, where his trial was scheduled to commence. However, the
The post Peter Lara walks free from Mark Waight murder charge after over a year on remand appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
