Last night, we told you how a man tried to rob a gas station at gunpoint on Bullet Tree Road, but he was stopped by a brace security guard who only carried a machete. Well tonight, that man, 37 year-old Melhem Kelly, a resident of Orange Street, San Ignacio Town, is at Belize Central Prison after being taken to court.
He was arraigned this afternoon in the San Ignacio Court, where he was read charges of attempt robbery, keeping an unlicensed firearm, keeping unlicensed ammunition, and wounding.
Kelly pleaded not guilty to all the more serious offences, but inexplicably, he tried to accept guilt for the crime of wounding. That meant that he was basically putting himself on the scene, admitting that he attacked the Security Guard, Alexander Rios, and inflicted stabbing and cutting injuries to him. What he disagreed with in his plea, however, was that he tried to rob the pump attendant, Romeo Quiroz, and that he was armed with a loaded rusty .38 special revolver at that time. These offences come from the very same allegation, which means that the court couldn't separate the charges from each other. Therefore, the Magistrate did not accept his guilty plea, and he was entered into an equivocal plea of not guilty. He was then remanded to prison until his next court date.
As we told you, pump attendant was on duty at Puma Chuc's Gas Station on Bullet Tree Road at about 10 p.m. on Monday night, June 15. He reported to police that he saw Kelly approaching him with a loaded weapon while demanding money. Security Guard Alexander Rios spotted the robbery in progress, and while armed with only a machete, he bravely tackled Kelly and tried to subdue him. In the process, Kelly slashed him a number of times to the hands and head with a knife and inflicted very deep cuts which required extensive stitching. Rios did not let up, and by the time police arrived to respond to the robbery in progress, they found Rios and Kelly still struggling in the drain.
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