Was Jesus Marroquin the first man accused of murder to get bail in Belize? Well that's what his attorney Dickie Bradley said and what we reported. But it's just not so. It was brought to our attention today that the precedent was set 29 years ago, in March of 1977.
This man, 74-year-old Hubert Neal, a resident of Freetown Sibun, pictured here in the March 20th 1977 edition of the Amandala, was accused of killing his own son, Austin Neal with a butcher knife. But Neal was an old man, and more than that, he was blind and it's on those very exceptional circumstances that his attorney Manuel Sosa got bail from Chief Justice Sir Denis Malone a few days after he was remanded. Sosa was working out of the firm of WH Courtenay and Company.
Newspaper accounts at the time announced that_: "it is the first time in living memory that a man charged for murder has been granted bail..." The Jesus Marroquin bail thus becomes the second time that an accused murderer has been granted bail.
Though we could not confirm it, best reports suggest that Hubert Neal was later cleared of the accusation. His attorney, Sosa went unto the bench where he is now a judge on the Court of Appeals.
