Email

Print

Zetina explained that it was a matter of considerable embarrassment for Agent Kelly. Zetina also disclosed the name of the informant but because we were unable to reach that person for comment we've had to excise that name from the interview:…

Carmen Zetina, Former Police Commissioner
"While being the Commissioner of Police it was brought to my attention about a tape that was done and the funny thing about this tape is that a fellow had taped the DEA agents at the time - the same Raymond Kelly that the claim is mentioning. And you could have heard from the tape that Kelly was prompting things to this fellow about 'find out about Musa,' 'find out about Fonseca,' 'find out about these things' more, noh? And he was just keeping calm and answering yes "I'll do that" but what is strange about it - and I had to laugh it out afterwards - was that the DEA agent was actually, was taped with the same tape he had provided, he had taped the DEA agent and the tape was played in my presence and from there I could have gathered exactly what had transpired to the extent that I had called the DEA agent in question and I told him, I practically humiliated him in the sense that you had a Belizean taping him with his own tape! When I spoke to the fellow Kelly, he says that he knows and he was mad at this fellow, very mad [Jules Vasquez - at his informant?] yes because he had used him, that to me was used, you can't dodge it, from the tape he was used. He was putting it to him to find out things about certain people. Come on, I know how people behave and I know I am a police officer and can tell you that when I wanted information, I want to get it through the informant, I have to give him guidelines of how to go about getting the information, whether he get it true, but sometimes as from experience you know informants tell you what you want to hear sometimes."

Jules Vasquez
"He was prompting him to find out about ministerial involvement in drug activity."

Carmen Zetina, Former Police Commissioner
"That's exactly how he was putting it to the fellow - to the Belizean informant, I mean to find out something about them. I don't know how they get to find out anything about Mr. Fonseca or anything like that, they were just making inquiries, to me those wild inquiries that were being made or requests being made to the informant. The way I see it, Jules, is that the fellow, the Belize informant, the same one who taped the thing - he had to laugh because he know he put it over the agent, that's how he put it, that you had a professional DEA agent being recorded unknowing to him - secretly recording, unknowing to him, that's the way I put it, and the fellow, the Belize informant certainly felt proud about what he had done. I am sure he would have shared it not to one but many people, I don't know who all got a copy of the tape but we got a copy. We had a copy, he came and we played it and we asked the questions and that's the way he put it across."

Jules Vasquez
"Was the minister of Police at the time aware of that recording, aware that DEA agents according to your account were urging informants to implicate the minister of police?"

Carmen Zetina, Former Police Commissioner
"The minister was informed, definitely. I had to inform him, as exactly what happened. And I don't know how Mr. Fonseca took because I didn't question him but certainly he had his laugh too because when I put it to him as to how a professional has gotten taped unknowing to him, you know? That was the part that we questioned about - how could you, a professional person make a person, an informant, use you? Used the same equipment you provided him to tape you? It was very embarrassing, I can tell you that."

Jules Vasquez
"But certainly - you can't know the mind of the Minister Of National Security - but certainly if I were the Minister Of National Security and I wasn't involved in anything and I had heard that the DEA was trying to pay informants to implicate me, I would do everything I could to either clear my name or eject that DEA operative from the local scene because, clearly, he is perpetrating a falsehood against a minister of government."

Carmen Zetina, Former Police Commissioner
"Well I don't think so, if you look at the tape he was not implicating the minister because he didn't say anything incriminating the minister, he just says 'finding out' you know. But what is the basis of the question asked by the agent? I don't know, maybe he had a different informant and know that you have read it, it's no doubt it's Hertular, I have seen it, I have read it so from there now I can put, tie up things together and say maybe that prompted Kelly to tell this informant what to do, I mean based on that, based on what he was told."

And if the claims were bogus - and the subject of some embarrassment - why then did Agents Kelly and Williams recount them in US Court? Zetina will give his theory on that in the second part of that interview which airs tomorrow.

In an email to our News Director today Fonseca points out that he travels freely to and from the United States almost every two months.