Tonight there are still more questions coming out of the Immigration Department about the fraudulent issuance of a passport to a South Korean fugitive named Kim Won Hong. So far, Minister of State for immigration Elvin Penner has been forced to resign from Cabinet. And now three Immigration Officers who work in the passport section have been recommended for suspension. They are Data Entry Clerks, Omar Phillips and Erwin Robinson and the head of that section Mrs. Sharon Neal-Flowers. They remain on duty pending a hearing.
But, as we've noted no one from the nationality section has been suspended. And that's very strange, because those with a knowledge of how the process works tell us that the file for Kim Won Hong had to originate in the Nationality section. That section also produced this, the nationality certificate obtained by 7news which establishes Kim Won Hong as a citizen of Belize. When a new Belizean applies for a passport, this document is handed over to the passport section which then makes out a passport according to the specifications on the certificate.
The document with the seal was signed by Elvin Penner and is dated April 22, 2013 –for a passport issued on September 9th, 2013.
The application for the passport was signed on September third, 2013 – again by Penner who also signed the picture. In the application Penner signs that he has known "Won-Hong Kim" for three years as a friend.
Such a good friend that Penner, we are told, also took the application to the office. The application was then signed by Penner's close political associate, Justice of the Peace and former UDP Mayor of Cayo, Alfonso "Ponchis" Cruz. And to make the Penner connection complete, his driver was authorized to pick up the passport on September ninth. Of course, Won Hong couldn't pick it up because he was in a Taiwanese jail.
There is some doubt as to whether Won Hong ever spent time in Belize – and it is also doubtful that he actually qualified for a Belizean passport. But while the investigation is ongoing, we continue to note that the Nationality Section which puts together the nationality file and prepares the nationality certificate appears not to be under the microscope. We note also that the nationality file for Kim Won Hong is missing. As they say, it gets "curiouser and curiouser" and well keep digging deeper and deeper.
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