7 News Belize

Eric Chang Worked Hard For Citizen Kim
posted (August 23, 2016)
Eric Chang - he's the former Belize City Councillor who seemed to have been the intermediary between Wong Hong Kim, or Citizen Kim and former Minister of State Elvin Penner. Penner got the passport fast tracked in Belize, and Chang - it seems - was the man who was to grease the wheels for Kim in Taiwan. At the time, Kim was in a Taiwanese jail - awaiting - and desperately trying to avoid - extradition to South Korea. He wanted the entirely fraudulent Belizean passport to use as a sort of get out of jail card.

Now, the auditor general's report on passport irregularities shows the extent of Chang's machinations to get Citizen Kim freed.

The report details this in an email from the then Belize Ambassador to Taiwan Cherie Nisbet who says that she got an urgent call from Chang in mid-September 2013. Chang reportedly told her he needed two urgent visas to Belize for two South Korean nationals who needed to go to Belize the next day. Nisbet said she needed all the details before she could help anyone. Chang - she claims - could not explain the emergency and said he may have to call a minister in Belize to issue visas upon arrival. The next day Chang told her he was at a detention center in Taiwan, visiting a South Korean national. He told her that Taiwan Immigration may call her to ask if he is indeed the Deputy Mayor of Belize City - which he was at the time. This suggests that he was trying to use all means - including his Belizean credentials to spring Citizen Kim from jail.

Nisbet says she later got a call from Taiwan immigration warning her that it is not advisable for Chang to visit Citizen Kim.

The auditor general's report also details that Alejandro Young, the Charge d'affairs if Honduras brought the Citizen Kim passport to Ambassador Nisbet. He asked that a letter be written to validate the passport and the nationality so that Kim could be issued a Taiwan visa in the Belize passport to be released from detention. Citizen Kim had sworn to a petition that he be released as a Belizean citizen and be placed under the protection of the Belize Embassy. This never happened.





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