7 News Belize

Witness Protection Not Realistic For Belize?
posted (June 7, 2017)

So, with all these unsolved murders caused by witnesses unwilling to give a statement and appear in court, can’t the state institute a witness protection program?  Williams said today that it is not realistic:…

ACP Chester Williams - OC, Eastern South Division
"Some would say to have a witness protection programme but to have a witness protection programme in Belize alone will not work and to have a witness protection programme with other countries will be very costly to the government. So we have to see how we can weigh our strike a balance and try to find something more reasonable and at this time I really and truly don't see that occurring. As a committee we work together because at the end of the day the bad man they can't kill everybody and if we decide that we will make a stance against those persons who continue to perpetrate criminal acts, we can do it together being unified and so we're hoping that could happen because if it take a witness and send them to PG, PG is just couple miles down the road, send them to Corozal same thing. We might say well do it in Mexico, the amount of witnesses Mexico might be sending to us compared to what we'll be sending to them it will be unfair to us."

Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados have active witness protection programmes in which witnesses are moved out of the country before and after trial.  Guyana just introduced legislation for its own program.

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