COMMISSIONER OF POLICE SPEAKS ON MISSING CAUTION STATEMENT

August 03, 2007

Police Commissioner Gerald Westby was the guest on Police Link Up show on Love F-M last night. While on the show Commissioner Westby responded to concerns of the missing caution statement in the case of businessman Chay Ben Bou Nahra who fatally shot Shawn Copius on September seventeenth, 2005, after Copius had allegedly burglarised Bou-Nahra's home in King's Park.

Gerald Westby:Police Commissioner  

“When that matter first came out and we were directed to charge them with murder.There were concerns coming out of CIB because murder is not a bail able offence and we had approached the then Director of Public Prosecutor.I don’t want anybody to feel like it was all rough relations with the former DPP because he had his good qualities too and we agreed,after discussion that police would charge for manslaughter and he would reserve his option and indictment to put the charge to murder.So that is exactly what we did.There was a subsequent memo that came from the DPP office directing that we charge for manslaughter.The last one was read,that was the first one but there was a subsequent memo where the DPP,coming back to the last issue with the missing statement from the file that Ben Bou Nahra had given.The file was returned to prosecution branch to go to preliminary inquiry.It was at that point that they statement was discovered missing.Immediately CIB launched an investigation and the result of that investigation was sent to the DPP.But what has happened traditionally,in the relationship with the DPP’s office and the police is that files are only signed for,but the contents were never inventoried.There has never been any much cases where statements,so there has always been a trust so the contents itself while the file was handed from point A to point B,between the two offices,the contents was never inventoried.So it was difficult to say where the particular statement went missing.Was it an prosecution branch or was it at the office of the DPP and that is the honest truth.” 

Commissioner Westby said as a result of what transpired they have now ensured that files are inventorized when it moves from one office to another. Commissioner Westby said he has an excellent working relationship with the Director of Public Prosecutions. Commissioner Westby said it is now time for Belize to work towards joining the Caribbean Court of Justice.

Gerald Westby:Police Commissioner  

“As societies and the region evolve,we as a people regionally,we need to have our own system in place.We understand our own unique situation in the Caribbean.Certainly hats off to the Privy Council but I think that it’s time for us to have and I would like to see our Belizean politicians come together and pass in the House of the National Assembly where we can have the Criminal’s Appeal because right now if it’s five years and they go to the Privy Council,they will not hang them again.I have never ever authorized any hanging I’m certain if you commit a crime then you must pay a price.And that is what I would like to see our politicians come together and put partisan politics aside or pass the bill or the act or whatever it is to authorize the Caribbean Court of Justice as our final court of appeal.” 

Police Commissioner Gerald Westby.

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