At exactly 12:47 this afternoon a jury of 6 women and three men went in to deliberate on the fate of 56 year old Jabor "Gabby" Affif. A little under three hours later, at 3:35 they were out and the verdict was unanimous: not guilty. Going through 16 counts of possession of a false official document, abetment to forgery and abetment to uttering forged documents the forelady took 4 minutes to read the charges, before unflinchingly declaring Affif not guilty on all 16 counts. The trial started back on April 26th and after a month where 26 witnesses for the prosecution testified. The first reaction for Affif was that he knew what the outcome would be and that is why he returned to Belize to face his charges.
Alfonso Noble,
Is there anything you care to say about your not guilty?
Jabor "Gabby" Affif, Acquitted
"I don't have no comment. If anything you could speak to my lawyer. I don't have any comment."
Alfonso Noble,
Are you surprised at the verdict?
Jabor "Gabby" Affif,
"I appreciate that the law spoke. I said a long time ago and I explained to you that I am coming to face the problem and there is no problem."
Kirk Anderson, Director of Public Prosecutions
"Things never often go in life as you planned but we respect the jury's deliberations and the verdict and it's a verdict of a jury of nine persons and that is the verdict that they have come to. That is the system of justice that we have."
Alfonso Noble,
There is still another person out there. Will you all be pursuing that other person for criminal charges as you did with Mr. Affif?
Kirk Anderson,
"Well yes we await his return to the country. Once he returns the law allows us to try him. We are waiting to see if he will return."
Alfonso Noble,
What went wrong with your case?
Kirk Anderson,
"Well I think that question would best be directed to the jury because they are the ones who decided and they are the ones who will best be able to tell you what went wrong with our case."
Simeon Sampson, Affif's Attorney
"Of course it went as we expected. From the get go, after analysis of the evidence, myself, Mr. Ellis, Mr. Chebat, the team, this was a perfect team. Myself and Chebat and Mr. Ellis Arnold, we did do, in my opinion, a corporative, heavy defense and it prevailed with the jury as you saw happened a while ago."
Alfonso Noble,
I saw it was a not guilty verdict on all 16 counts but earlier in the trial I know ten of those counts were dropped.
Simeon Sampson,
"This is what happened, earlier, as one of the defense attorneys, I was delegated to do a no case submission. I did the no case submission in respect of all sixteen. I would have liked or we would have liked for all 16 counts to be thrown out but we succeeded in just ten being thrown out as a result of a successful no case submission on those ten counts, leaving only six remaining counts for the deliberation of the jury. That was what happened."
Alfonso Noble,
But still the jury considered all sixteen of those counts.
Simeon Sampson,
"Yes for the record because when the trial began he was put in their charge in respect of all 16 so legally they must respect, albeit with the last ten on directed verdict from the judge. He directed them to say not guilty to the remaining ten counts.
What worked in our favor was the fact that there was only two witnesses upon which the prosecution relied and both witnesses, the substance of their evidence was not consistent in respect of Max Santos for example, in one breath he was saying one thing and in the other breath when I was cross examining him, he said that well this girl was all by herself way to the back but he then said my client was there beside him. So I think the jury saw all that. But not only that, Miss Ursula Humes confessed upon immunity. She was offered immunity. She admitted that she had committed crime and that was the basis for her getting immunity but she said, "I did it on my own. Gabby Affif was not to my knowledge a party to what I did.'"
Today marked the end of a long saga dating back to 2002 when irregularities in the processing of at least 23 passport application files and 16 nationality files were alleged to have been illegally processed through immigration agents for Chinese nationals who had never set foot in Belize. As the DPP has pointed out, there is still a case pending for another person alleged to be a similar agent for the processing of nationality and passport documents. He is Hassan El Sayed who left the country after being indicted and has not returned.
