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Today was supposed to be the continuation of the Senate Hearings on Immigration in Belmopan, and things were going to be hot, with testimony from former Ambassador to Taiwan Cherie Nisbet, and Alvarine Burgess, the immigration agent who turned whistle-blower back in 2013.

Early this morning, however, before the media could start heading out to the National Assembly, we all received word that a decision was made to postpone the hearing. For answers, we spoke with Committee Chairman Aldo Salazar at his Belize City office about the last-minute decision.

He said that he was acting on a request from Opposition Leader John Briceno:

Hon. Aldo Salazar - Chairman, Senate Select Committee
"The reason is that the request came from the opposition for us to put off the hearing for a week. Out of collegiality and respect I decided that it would be best to do so, that is really the end of it."

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir was there any reasons given to you as to the necessity for this postponement?"

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Well I don't have any exact mention of - I understand this morning I've been hearing all over the place people have been telling me that there was reports that people were going armed to Belmopan and that thugs were going to be there to cause disruption. I can say for a fact that I have no idea of that, I was never given that reason about a real threat in Belmopan or any intelligence as to people being armed in Belmopan etc. That is a figment; if it is I certainly don't know about it, it wasn't shared with me. So I think that is a question that you really need to ask the leadership of the opposition. I was initially concerned and opposed to an adjournment for this particular reason that people would take to blaming the government or myself for having things to hide. I really don't see how we can hide anything in one week so the answer to the question is that I certainly did not have anything to do with it; it was a request and like I said it was done out of collegiality. I understood that since the request came from very high in opposition that attempts would have been made to ensure that this sort of propaganda was not perpetuated by uppity of the opposition."

The media has been requesting a comment from John Briceno all day, but up to news time, none has been forthcoming.

About 3 hours ago, a statement did come from his desk - and it is a letter addressed to quote, "my friends" .It says, quote,"Yesterday I called the Prime Minister to express concern over the behavior of "Yellowman" and over the behavior of his Party Chairman August, I told him if he could not take control of his people then we would not sit back and allow for any situation that would put our senator at risk. The PM agreed that we did not want an escalation of the situation and said he would speak to the Chairman of the Committee"

"At11:30last night I was consulted by the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee who asked if I would strongly object to the postponement, due to security, he did not feel comfortable with proceeding. I agreed to the postponement because I am fully aware that what the UDP want is for something to happen at the Senate Inquiry to cause them to shut it down."End quote.