It’s been just over one month since Joseph Budna was seen taken from just steps away from Orange Walk’s police station. He landed in the hands of Guatemalan authorities hours after.
After visiting the abduction site and confirming the presence of surveillance cameras, News 5 called for the release of the footage. Six days later, a grainy, heavily redacted clip of the kidnapping surfaced online.
Less than two weeks after Budna was taken, Foreign Affairs Minister Francis Fonseca confirmed contact had been made with him inside a Guatemalan prison.
Prime Minister John Briceño later confirmed that the police report he had demanded fell short and called it “incomplete and therefore unsatisfactory,” in a press release on September 8.
Briceño placed Police Commissioner Dr Richard Rosado on immediate 45-day leave. Meanwhile, an investigation led by the police department and prepared by Assistant Commissioner Suzette Anderson cleared Rosado of involvement in Budna’s abduction. He was reinstated just 23 days into his leave, 22 days earlier than expected.
However, how can a department implicated in the incident be trusted to investigate itself?
According to Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa, this report included interviews with 10 witnesses, Budna’s own identification of an individual, and references to two surveillance videos. “And then, of course, the conclusion after interviewing all these witnesses in terms of the next step forward, which is the appointment of an independent investigator as requested by many Belizeans,” Musa added.
With identification given by Budna himself, why hasn’t anyone been charged?
Musa stated his identification of PC Barry Flowers during that night’s events has not led to criminal charges due to the “context of identification.”
Musa stated the footage and image shown to Budna and his identification of PC Barry Flowers during that night’s events were viewed in the context and were not enough to warrant criminal charges.
Musa explained, “Budna then said, ‘Okay, one of them wasn’t masked,’ because at first he [Budna] said they were masked, and he changed and said they were not masked. And then he was shown an image, and did he not say, ‘That is the man’? He did. So that is the identification that resulted in the deputy commissioner then placing Bary Flowers on interdiction.”
Budna’s case is now entering the long-requested phase of an independent investigation. But with no entity in Belize currently authorised to conduct such a probe, the question is now, who can actually lead it?
Musa reiterated that the police department is currently the only entity legally authorised to investigate. Given the scrutiny on the department itself, he pointed to a proposed but still undeveloped solution: a regional investigative team made up of CARICOM police officers. But as he admitted, “That doesn’t currently exist. That is something in its infancy in the discussion phase.”
However, Musa supported Attorney Richard “Dickie” Bradley’s idea of appointing a retired criminal judge. “A criminal judge with former DP, with all the experience, would be ideal. Whoever that retired judge is, of course, they’re still able to carry out such an investigation to be appointed to something like this. That is something I would support,” Musa said.
Musa said the videos would only be released after an independent investigation is completed. “In terms of the precise time that it is released, I can respect the fact that, you know what? We want to preserve the integrity of this. We don’t want anyone zooming in on this and adding people’s faces and tampering with it. Let us preserve the evidence at least to the end of the independent investigation.”
Since Budna’s alleged abduction, Prime Minister Briceño has maintained that it was not a state-sanctioned action.
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