Family Criticizes GOB for Lack of Communication in Pop Case

Sebastian Pop’s family is blasting the government for how his case has been handled. They say for two years, no one told them a thing about his condition or even where he was being held. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is defending its position, saying Belize’s embassy in Guatemala provided documents to support Pop’s legal process. So, why were his loved ones left in the dark? That’s the big question.

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“I think I, I really can’t answer that. The reality is as a number of you know, exchanges were done. But again, they live in a very rural community. So you know, they said they made reports, certain reports to the police. Apparently, those were not followed up on. We don’t know. In terms of foreign affairs, we know of one, a call that was made to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I think in 2023 or so and based on that call, certain actions were taken, certain actions were taken to try to get Mr. Pop’s birth certificate. There was an issue of determining whether or not he was in fact, a Belizean national. There was great difficulty in getting  his records from the Vital Statistics Unit. As you know, there are many problems with that. So it took a few months to even get his records. But the ministry got his records and forwarded those to the embassy in Guatemala and to his lawyers. It is something we are taking very, very seriously and as I said, we’re making every effort to ensure that we deal with it with a sense of urgency to try to see what we can do to either get Mr. Pop to be repatriated, to Belize or to pursue a legal appeal for him,  because his lawyer certainly feels that there are strong grounds for an appeal in Guatemala.”