PM Briceño Demands Answers in Budna Investigation

Tonight, Prime Minister John Briceño wants answers. He’s ordered the Minister of Home Affairs to update his office on the investigation into Joseph Budna’s abduction and his dramatic surrender to Guatemalan authorities. It’s been two weeks since Budna was kidnapped, and public trust in the police has taken a serious hit. Now, new details backing Budna’s version of events are fueling louder calls for an independent investigation. Attorneys are rallying behind him, and his mother says she’s never doubted his story for a second. News Five’s Paul Lopez has the latest.

 

Paul Lopez, Reporting

Tonight, the investigation into Joseph Budna’a abduction from the heart of Orange Walk Town has intensified. At the center of it all—serious questions about police involvement. Explosive surveillance footage shows a police officer right there at the scene as the kidnapping unfolded. That revelation has prompted Prime Minister John Briceño to demand answers and an urgent update on the case.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“This morning I called Minister Musa who is responsible as the Minister of Home Affairs, and I told him I want that report today and tomorrow the latest. Once I get that report I will see what it presents and probably have to decided what is the next step.”

 

After being abducted and later surrendering to Guatemalan police in Arenal Village, Budna claimed that police officers were behind his kidnapping.

 

Voice of: Joseph Budna, Fugitive

“There was communication with the officers with one Kareem. I don’t know which Kareem, it is and also one of them mentioned ComPol, we got the man. They beat me when I was trying to get some air. Both officers at the back seat sit down on top of me, one on the top of my head and one on my back.”

 

Budna’s mother, Katherine Williams, told News Five today that she never doubted her son’s account of what transpired that Friday evening. She says recent developments have opened the eyes of the nation to what she always knew to be the truth.

 

Katherine Williams, Mother of Joseph Budna

“The way I see they beat him and lick him with that stick I fell bad about it. I just sit down and cry. I could not do anything about it. But the good lord sees everything, cause deh man shouldn’t have been so rough. From the beginning I didn’t doubt anything he said. I believed everything, because he said a vehicle was trailing him I think about two days or the night before they held him. They were noticing him long time. They wanted him long time.”

 

The call for an independent investigation into the kidnapping has since increased. Prime Minister Briceno says that determination will be made after he reviews the report that he has demanded his Minister of Home Affairs to produce.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I have not had a chance to see the video. I have been busy here, btu let me repeat, I have told the minister I want that report today or tomorrow at the very latest. Once I get that report we could take the next step forward and I am telling you right now, if there is the need to name an independent investigation, I will do it, my government will do. This was not sanctioned by the government of Belize. We have nothing to do with it.”

 

Reporter

“So far, the allegations Budna has made has checked out, if it turns out the police is involved, he called Kareem, which I assume is Minister Musa and he also called the ComPol. Would heads roll then?”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“I think we are jumping ahead of ourselves.”

 

While Prime Minister Briceño waits for an update from Home Affairs Minister Kareem Musa, there’s a major development in the Joseph Budna case. A team of attorneys has now stepped in to fight for Budna’s constitutional rights here in Belize—and leading that charge is attorney Arthur Saldivar.

 

Arthur Saldivar, Attorney-at-Law

“We all have a  right to liberty and freedom of movement. So, where Mr. Budna was forcibly detained. In fact prior to his detention he was severely beaten and then spirited away. That is a crime, in fact not a crime, but a series of crimes. WE saw the video, Belize has seen the video that clearly shows that in respect of the police department there can be no ambiguity as to the involvement of the police. We saw one police officer who by his omission to act implicated the department in what occurred with Mister Budna. So the police department is responsible for a Belizean citizen being spirited away in an illegal and extrajudicial manner to a country that claims us.”

 

Saldivar and his co-counsel have prepared legal documents to be filed before a court of law.

 

Arthur Saldivar

“It is sad that this is where we are. I know that for the general public there is this belief that when persons are handled in a particular way they have done something to warrant that kind of action. The truth of it is, it is never justified to exert that kind of physical violence on a person in any circumstance.”

 

The Commissioner of Police, Doctor Richard Rosado has not updated the public on the police investigation for the past two weeks. Minister of Home Affairs Kareem Musa has also been quiet on the matter. Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.