Police investigators worked through the weekend to gather more statements in the investigation into criminal wrongdoing by Elvin Penner. They were acting under orders from the Director of Public Prosecutions who received the file on Friday evening and found that the investigation was incomplete and that statements had not been recorded from certain key persons. So that's the job that investigators led by Inspector Santiago Ciau undertook this weekend. One of those key persons was 7News Director Jules Vasquez. On Saturday, Ciau came to Channel 7's studios to record a statement on the email that Penner sent to this newsroom on September 27th, 2013. In that he said his friend Won Hong Kim came to him to get a signature for a passport. Penner's accusers say that this amounts to a confession of wrongdoing since Penner could not have met with Kim in September, because at that time Kim was in a Taiwanese jail. So, the email is pivotal and so is this text message which Vasquez exchanged with Penner - in which the area representative acknowledged that the mail was from him.
Police continue the questioning of officials and persons related to Penner - including his driver who picked up the Citizen Kim passport, and Penner's close political associate Alfonso Ponchis Cruz who signed the application along with Penner. They have also interviewed the Minister of Immigration Godwin Hulse, Director of Immigration Maria Marin and Immigration Officers who handled the missing Kim file, Ady Pacheco and Gordon Wade.
Still, they haven't gotten around to questioning Penner - but we are told that is likely to happen sometime down the road.
As to the statute bar deadlines? Well, DPP Cheryl Lynn Vidal says that in relation to any possible offence under the Belizean Nationality Act, the period of limitation ended today, March 11th. and for that there was no charge.
But she is giving consideration to the charge of "making a statement which is to his knowledge untrue for the purpose of procuring a passport whether for himself or any other person". The DPP says that this is an indictable offence and IS NOT subject to any period of limitation.
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