Police Commissioner Named in Budna Abduction Lawsuit

Also named in the lawsuit filed against the Government of Belize is none other than Commissioner of Police, Dr. Richard Rosado. The seventy-four‑page claim, submitted back in September by attorneys Arthur Saldivar, Michelle Trapp, and Emmertice Anderson, was filed on behalf of social media commentator Joseph Budna, who remains jailed in Guatemala following what he says was an abduction from Belize. The suit doesn’t shy away from pointing fingers. In fact, it calls out high‑ranking officials within the police department, including the commissioner himself. And today, Saldivar stood firmly behind the decision to list Dr. Rosado in the claim, raising serious questions about whether justice may have been obstructed in the earliest stages of this investigation.

 

Arthur Saldivar, Attorney-at-Law

“The third defendant, the commissioner of police in at, in the least, has to be able to come to see which video he saw because he said he saw a video and in the video that he saw, no police officer was in that video. And then we saw Choco come on. He has to at least answer to that, don’t you think?”

 

Britney Gordon

“And what about the fact that the DPP said that the file the government provided was less than nothing?”

 

Arthur Saldivar

“Further evidence of coverup? This thing should have gone to the DPP from August twenty-third. The DPP should have been the only one that the file went to. I don’t know what the investigative powers of any minister or Prime Minister, I don’t know that the Constitution grants them any kinda right in that respect. But because the matter was kept out of the hands of the DPP for her, as long as it was, it makes the entire situation suspect. It stinks to high heaven. At this juncture it is early. It is very early. This thing is just starting. They’re trying to say that because it’s a constitutional matter and the claims that are being made are serious that you should be able to say this is what we have linked to the minister in relation to the accusations. What we know, Marisol, is that there were four separate cameras. Four, all of which. Came directly under the control of the government of Belize, the Banquita’s House of Culture, the court camera, the social security camera, and the police station camera, the police station camera. So tell me what part of the footage de?”

 

With the commissioner now pulled directly into this constitutional challenge, those unanswered questions about missing footage, delayed files, and who really controlled the early stages of this investigation aren’t going away anytime soon. And as Saldivar puts it, if key evidence was kept from the DPP for months, that’s not just troubling, it raises the possibility of a full‑blown coverup. For now, though, this case is only just getting started, and the pressure is mounting for the police department and the government to explain what really happened.