The Budna File: ‘A File Full of Empty Words’

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Cheryl-Lynn Vidal, has described the police’s investigation into the abduction of Joseph Budna as deeply inadequate.

“It is not a thin file. I too was expecting a thin file. It is not a thin file.” 

However, she described the case file delivered to her office last week Wednesday as containing “less than nothing.” She said, “I apologize as director for saying this but I was also expecting that there would have been nothing in the file. What I was not expecting was that there would be less than nothing in the file which is really my characterization of what has been put before me.” 

Vidal said her office is looking at the file as a team. 

When asked if there would be any arrest, Vidal said, “based on what was sent to me at this very moment there cannot possibly be an arrest of anyone because very few people saw anything and what they saw they are not too sure about what they saw. So at the moment, no, there cannot be an arrest of anyone at all.” 

Vidal added, “There can be words. The words can be of no impact. There can be words that really don’t say anything.” 

Vidal received the file after Prime Minister John Briceño handed the case over to her office instead of giving a ‘go ahead’ to the public-requested independent investigation.

According to Briceño, the Attorney General advised there was no legal framework to approve it.

Budna was abducted in Orange Walk back in August. A police officer, Constable Barrington Flowers, was accused of assisting in the abduction but was later moved from interdiction to full-pay suspension. He denied all allegations. Budna remains in a Guatemalan prison.