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In tomorrow’s newscast, we’ll show you the questions that the Senate Committee had for Heredia about his motives for helping for helping the Harmouche applicants. But, we now turn  back now to Rene Montero’s testimony from the afternoon session. You heard how he asserted that he only sent one recommendation letter to the the Immigration Department, trying to assist applicants who requested it. 

The Senators then pointed out 2 other applicants noted in the report, and he said that he didn’t send letters for them, but maybe someone from his Santa Elena office did. Here’s that exchange:

Hon. Mark Lizarraga - Business Senator
“Appendix F and just below that your name again was on the minute sheet for a Bertha Veronica Ramirez, you recall that? Did you intervene then for that person minister?â€￾

Hon. Rene Montero - UDP Minister
“I repeat, I did not mention any names, a list of bna numbers and perhaps Bertha Veronica Ramirez is familiar to me, I know her. She lives in Central Farm, she is married to one of the persons that use to work for me, I know her for probably 15 or 20 years, she’s quite happily married. Belizean children that have attended high school and University of Belize.â€￾

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
“The point I’m trying to make minister and sorry if I was not clear, is that you claim the only request you made was on the 9th of January 2012 when you made that whole list; when you requested her facilitation for that list. This one was on the 18th of June so this was another occasion, do you recall that?â€￾

Hon. Rene Montero
“As far as I know, I only made that request, I maintain that I only made that request on page 2:12, no other request. As I mentioned before my office in Santa Elena was making request for the status for certain nationalities, maybe this could be one because I know the person, I am familiar with the person but I never made the request; perhaps it came from my office.â€￾

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
“Minister there was another instance that you mentioned here for one Belezario Francisco Nahera the 4th of January, not on the 9th do you recall that instance?â€￾

Hon. Rene Montero
“As I mentioned before it would have been a request from my office, requesting the status of Pastor Nahera, he is a pastor. I know him very well and he lives in the Santa Cruz area of Santa Elena and yes it was only a request from my office requesting the status of his nationality documents.â€￾