By Aaron Humes: Four years after their encounter with BDF Private Jessie Escobar in Santa Familia, Cayo District, in which a colleague is accused of shooting him dead, Ramon Alcoser and Juan Carlos Morales were today found guilty of perverting the course of justice by making inaccurate and false statements to investigators.
The case was prosecuted by Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl-Lynn Vidal, who called the conclusion reached today ‘extremely important.’ She expressed that the evidence adduced in court was ‘incontrovertible’ and showed that “the version of events given by this soldier and this police officer was entirely fabricated,” noting that her office has seen previous instances of officers suspected of not telling the entire truth in their statements to protect their fellows.
The Senior Magistrate, per the DPP, found the statements were given while ‘in a proper state of mind’ and of their own free will, contrary to the claims of the defendants that they had not been nourished and were tired. The court’s decision then reviewed the actual statements against the testimony of Escobar’s wife in court and the video recording of the incident. Importantly, the DPP said, the recording “showed very clearly that Jessie never reached out and grabbed anyone’s gun; it showed very clearly that he was not behaving in any aggressive manner toward the person who eventually shot him.” This contrasted with the claims of Alcoser and Morales that the civilians they had approached were behaving aggressively and that Escobar, off-duty, had approached Private Raheem Valencio, his alleged killer, aggressively and attempted to relieve him of his weapon.
The DPP said she would seek a custodial sentence because of the serious nature of the issue. Commenting on the proliferation of video recordings, she said law enforcement are now on notice: “I believe it’s a warning to law enforcement that moving forward, they should stop and think before they try to fabricate an account…I am certain that it has happened in the past; perhaps this is a warning that it should not happen in the future.”
The post Director of Public Prosecutions calls Alcoser/Morales decision ‘extremely important;’ issues warning on law enforcement’s conduct appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
By Aaron Humes: Four years after their encounter with BDF Private Jessie Escobar in Santa Familia, Cayo District, in which a colleague is accused of shooting him dead, Ramon Alcoser and Juan Carlos Morales were today found guilty of perverting the course of justice by making inaccurate and false statements to investigators. The case was
The post Director of Public Prosecutions calls Alcoser/Morales decision ‘extremely important;’ issues warning on law enforcement’s conduct appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
