Law - Channel 5 Belize

Chester and “Uncle” Make Amend, Cyberbullying Charges Dropped

The public feud between ComPol Williams and his brother, Arthur Roy Williams, also known as ‘Uncle,’ is now water under the bridge as the brothers made amends earlier today. As a result, the charges against Arthur were dropped by prosecutor Alifah Elrington this afternoon in the Belize City Magistrate’s Court. Both brothers were present in court when Elrington, the Head of Prosecution Branch, informed the Senior Magistrate that the crown is withdrawing all four counts against Arthur Roy Williams. This decision came after the siblings reconciled and agreed to move forward. ‘I love my brother,’ said ComPol Williams. ‘Uncle’ promised the outgoing Commissioner of Police that he would no longer post anything negative or defamatory about him, leading to the charges being withdrawn.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“Basically, Arthur Roy is my brother, we came from the same woman. Yes, there have been misunderstandings in the past with issue, but I believe that as a family we should always be able to work out our issues. And so, him and I spoke about the issue and we decided that it is best that we end it this way, as opposed to going through a court process.”

Reporter

“This is what they refer to as criminal mediation?”

Chester Williams

“No. No. There was no mediation done by the court. Myself and my brother, we discussed the issue and we came to our own agreement that it is best that we put it behind us and move on. Of course, I love my brother and I will always be there to support him. He has been there for me as a child when I was growing up. We have been very close in the past and I think that we can get back to where we used to be.”

Reporter

“So, Mr. Roy, what would you like to say today?”

Arthur Roy Williams

“It is what it is bang bye.”

Back on February 7, 2024, Arthur Roy Williams, a fifty-three-year-old driver for the Ombudsman and a resident of Dangriga, was initially arraigned on three criminal offenses, including two counts of using a computer system to disseminate false statements with the intent to cause public ridicule or embarrassment, and one count of using a computer system to intimidate under the Cybercrime Act, to which he pleaded not guilty. Then, about five months later, on July 3, 2024, ‘Uncle’ faced another charge of contempt of judicial order. Allegedly, between April and the end of June 2024, despite being ordered not to post anything about ComPol or the Belize Police Department, he continued to do so on social media.

High Court Can’t Solve All UDP Problems

At the end of today’s session, Justice Tawanda Hondora pointed out that the court case might not solve all the issues at hand. He urged both sides to consider other ways to address some of the problems, possibly through mediation between Barrow and Panton. Attorney Knox shared his interpretation of Justice Hondora’s suggestions.

Peter Knox, Attorney-at-law

“There are a lot of issues. He might say the convention might have been a valid convention. It was not necessarily invalid just because the chairman did not show up. It was not invalid because the SG did not sent the relevant documents. He will still have to verify if the relevant verification process was undertaken, as matter of fact, we say it was, they say it was not. We will still have to decide whether the delegates that showed up were real delegates or not. I would rather suggest there is some questions marks about that. Those are some of the main issues that would have to be covered. Questions of fact, rather than questions of principle.”

Barrow Says Panton’s Leadership Will Not Go Uncontested

But Barrow insists that Panton won’t have an uncontested leadership convention. He claims that some members of Panton’s team are planning to run against her and that there’s a petition against her. In response, Panton says Barrow’s claims are false. Here are both sides of the story.

Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Former U.D.P. Leader

“We don’t know what will happen, because I can tell you now, within her own alliance grouping there are people passing a resolution forward to amend the constitution so that anyone can offer themselves to be leader. So, the support she may think she may not be there. I will send it to you, but there is a petition circulating right now where in the alliance where people say we are not happy with having Tracy as our only option. It is not simple as she won her seat, so all hail the queen. That is the same dictatorship they criticized and complained about. So, these things need to be sorted out.”

Reporter

“Can you even decide at this point that the leadership won’t be contested, that you will be endorsed when there is a national convention?

Tracy Taegar-Panton, Leader of the Opposition

“That is a completely untrue statement and he must be held accountable for continuing to cause chaos and spread lies in this party. We had a meeting on March eighteenth at the Biltmore Plaza. We came together and signed a declaration, a commitment and we signed a declaration and commitment to move this party forward under my leadership and that is exactly how it will go.”

Shyne Threatens Legal Action Against 7News, BNN, and HoTP

Former Opposition Leader Moses ‘Shyne’ Barrow is demanding a retraction and apology from 7News Belize, claiming they defamed him in a report about his diplomatic passport. Through his lawyers, Barrow alleges that the media house, led by News Director Jules Vasquez, falsely suggested he resisted returning his diplomatic passport to the Government of Belize. The controversial report, aired on March 26th and posted on 7News Belize’s Facebook page with the headline “GOB Says to Shyne, ‘Game Over’, Yanks Diplomatic Passport,” claimed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had instructed Barrow to return his passport and that he was reluctant to comply. However, Barrow’s attorneys argue that he had already handed over the passport earlier that morning at around 10:51 a.m., hours before the report was published. The letter to Vasquez and Tropical Vision Limited (7News’ parent company) states that the report was designed to damage Barrow’s reputation, making him look defiant and uncooperative.

In related news, Barrow has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Belize News Network (BNN), also accusing them of spreading false and defamatory statements about his diplomatic passport. The letter, from Pitts Pitts & Associates on Barrow’s behalf, demands the immediate removal of a March 26th article on BNN’s Facebook blog. The article allegedly claimed that Barrow refused to return his diplomatic passport and had stolen government property. Barrow’s attorneys refute these claims, stating he voluntarily returned the passport to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs via his staff before the article was published. They argue that BNN’s post was not only inaccurate but also intended to cause “intentional embarrassment and malicious harm” to Barrow’s reputation.

Legal steps are also being taken against Hot Off the Press – Belize, a Facebook blog, for defamation. The law firm Pitts Pitts & Associates, representing Barrow, issued a cease-and-desist letter on March 27, 2025, demanding the immediate removal of a defamatory article published on March 26, 2025, on Hot Off the Press’s Facebook and Instagram pages. According to the letter, the article, titled “Shyne’s Diplomatic Days Numbered,” falsely alleged that Barrow refused to return his diplomatic passport, suggesting dishonesty and non-compliance with government directives. The letter says these claims are entirely baseless. It added that Barrow had voluntarily returned the passport to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prior to the publication of the article. The law firm has demanded the removal of the defamatory statements, a public apology, and compensation for damage to Barrow’s reputation.

CCJ Hears GOB vs. LPG Companies

The Caribbean Court of Justice is currently tackling a constitutional dispute between the Government of Belize and four privately-owned liquified petroleum gas companies. The two-day hearing kicked off today with submissions from the appellants, including the Controller of Supplies, the Minister of Economic Development, and the Attorney General. They are contesting a Court of Appeal decision that ruled the Government of Belize violated the companies’ constitutional rights to work and property by blocking them from importing LPG into Belize. The gas companies involved—Gas Tomza Limited, Western Gas Company Limited, Southern Choice Butane Limited (Zeta Gas), and Belize Western Energy Limited—also filed a cross-appeal on grounds of freedom of association and equal treatment, which they initially failed to prove. Today’s session lasted six hours, with the appellants still presenting their case. Eamon Courtenay, one of the four attorneys representing the Government of Belize, was the first to make his submissions.

Eamon Courtenay, Attorney-At-Law

“We say very firmly that the Court of Appeal was wrong on section seventeen and section three, property issue and section fifteen the right to work. We say that it is clear that is was the intent of parliament to reform the LPG sector by introducing a new regulatory regime and we ask this court to give full faith and confidence to the declared intention by the Parliament. Your honors and you will hear this repeatedly, it was the intent of the government to liberate this sector from the Zaragoza brother oligopoly for reasons proven in evidence and it is critical for the court to appreciate that there is a reality on the ground that existed that caused insecurity on the ground in the supply of LPG to Belize, that caused transfer pricing in that sector, that caused questions about the quality of LPG sold to consumers and there are serious problems about smuggling. These are issues which the legislation sought to address.”

NGC Monopoly Necessary for Financial Sustainability of Project?

As you might remember, in 2021, the government amended the National Liquefied Petroleum Gas Project Act to let other companies import LPG. This change came after the act was initially passed under the former U.D.P. administration. However, the amendment required private companies wanting to import LPG to build an import facility with a storage capacity of one point five million U.S. gallons. CCJ Judge, Justice Peter Jamadar, sought clarity on why such a requirement was necessary. Here’s a snippet of the exchange between Justice Jamadar and Eamon Courtenay.

Eamon Courtenay, Attorney-At-Law

“The difficulty with two hundred and three hundred and a fifteen-thousand-gallon facility is that trucks come in everyday across the border. Everyday permits are applied for, and trucks are coming in over and over and over. One point five million dollars is essential for this project to be successful.”

Justice Peter Jamadar, CCJ Judge

“So the one point five was deemed sufficient to meet your security, supply, your cost analysis, what if a smaller operator said ok you are taking care of Belize, this is enough to meet your needs, I want to do a three hundred, that is adding on to your one point five, I want to be a smaller operator. Why is that problematic if you have already covered with your government?”

Eamon Courtenay, Attorney-At-Law

“One point five is not sufficient it is what will allow the project to work. The country is actually using in excess of fourteen million gallons.”

Justice Peter Jamadar

“So having additional facilities is desirable.”

Eamon Courtenay

“Fourteen million which is roughly one million per month, the need to go through the facility is one point one. If we say somebody can bring in three hundred then one point one will not go through the facility.”

Justice Peter Jamadar

“So you needed to create a monopoly get one point one to make that project a success and anybody who threatened that minimum threshold had to be excluded.”

We will continue to follow the hearing on Wednesday.

Belizean Law Student Receives Five Outstanding Awards

A Belizean first-year law student at the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica has made history. Ebony Gabourel has become the first student to receive five awards in a single year from the law school. She topped her class of 200 students and was named the Most Outstanding Year One Student for the 2023-2024 academic year. But that’s not all—Gabourel also took home the Michael March Memorial Prize, the Williams McCoy and Palmer Prize, the Justice Courtney Scipio Orr Memorial Prize, and the Justice Dennis Morrison Memorial Prize. Talk about a clean sweep! Gabourel, who is the daughter of Attorney Sharon Pitts and the granddaughter of former Attorney General B. Q. Pitts, shared with us what it meant to achieve these incredible goals, especially while battling a health condition.

Ebony Gabourel, Law Student

“It was a challenge because the law school is a very rigorous program. It’s very intense. And, you know, it always feels like you don’t have enough time in 24 hours in each day. It feels like there’s always, well, there is always a lot to do, always a lot to tackle. So it was quite challenging and I also had a sudden onset health condition that affected my studies quite a lot and made it much more challenging than it already was. Uh, however, with the grace of God, I was able to persevere and just keep going so that I was able to not just complete my year, which is what I set out to do, but to get these awards that I’m very honored to have received. I’m proud as a Belizean and, you know, hope to have made my country very proud by doing so. There are a set of awards for first year students and then there’s a set of awards for second year students. I, and for the compliment, the compliment, full compliment of students at the law school. And, um, as far as I know, I know that I was the, at least for this academic year that I was speaking about, I received the most award of the students who received the most awards that have been received. It does raise a bar higher from me to myself. I think, honestly, I’m my biggest critic. And so I tend to be reluctant to celebrate achievements when like, The job is not done, so to speak, because the job I set out to achieve is completing the entire program and receiving my CLE at the end of it.”

Inventor Andre Gray Sues Channel 7 and Love FM for Defamation

Andre Gray has filed a defamation lawsuit against two media houses in Belize City: Tropical Vision (Channel 7) and RSV Limited (Love FM). Gray, known for his various inventions, is seeking damages for defamation and falsehood. He claims that several televised programs, including news segments and viral social media posts, have defamed him. Viewers might remember that when Gray visited Belize in January 2023, his credibility as an inventor was questioned. Reporters from both media houses tried to expose him as a fraud. Through his attorney, Gray is suing for damages, special damages, punitive damages, costs, and any other relief from the High Court.

Jeremy Enriquez Redistricting Hearing Now in Court of Appeal

Jeremy Enriquez may have lost his case against the government at the High Court, but he’s not giving up on stopping the March twelfth general election. He has filed an appeal, and today the Court of Appeal held a virtual case management hearing to set dates for filing affidavits and responses. The court will then schedule a hearing date. With March twelfth fast approaching, it’s uncertain whether the court will have enough time to hear the appeal and make a ruling. We’ll have to wait and see what happens this week and next Tuesday. Today’s hearing lasted fifty minutes and was presided over by Justices Minnet Hafiz-Bertram, Michelle Arana, and Peter Foster. Senior Counsel Eamon Courtney represented the Attorney General, while Senior Counsel Godfrey Smith represented the Elections and Boundaries Commission. Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan and Co-Senior Counsel Hubert Elrington appeared for Jeremy Enriquez. We’ll keep following this story.

AG Commits to Increased Security Measures for Magistrates

Last week, we reported that a magistrate in Punta Gorda was physically attacked by a suspect while on the bench. This incident has sparked serious security concerns. Tonight, Attorney General Anthony Sylvestre is pledging to implement stronger security measures.

Anthony Sylvestre, Attorney General

“I had a couple meetings last week with the current Chief Magistrate, the Chief Magistrate who use to assume the position, as well as with the magistrate in Punta Gorda who had to go through that traumatic experience. There is a number of issues we identified, which moving forward will be addressing. One of the things coming out of that is how virtual hearing could be effective in dealing with this. So, it is not every defendant who we need to come to court physically. You have a defendant who may be at the prison, so and adjournment could be taken. A trial, if the persons so agrees. We discussed a number of ways to mitigate and minimize incidents like that. That incident is regrettable and unfortunate. There were a number of police officers in the court at the time, I am not quite sure additionally what could have been done. But I say it si regrettable, unfortunate and I commiserate with he Magistrate for that.”