Last night on this newscast, you saw Antonette and Alfred Williams - parents of nine from Independence Village who feel they have been very cruelly cheated out of a chance to share in the life of their baby, Alfred Adrian.
In 1994, they legally him over to an adoptive mother as an infant so he could access very expensive healthcare in the United states for a condition that would have killed him had it not been treated. They say the understanding was that they would get him back once the condition was normalized.
But they never did - and they also claim other Belizean families were duped in the same way. Today we asked police minister Doug Singh what if anything can be done:..
Hon. Doug Singh, Minister of Police
"This is really praying upon vulnerable people because the Belizean individuals may not know of how to deal with this matter, may feel that they are far away and cant travel to the US, they don't know how to reach the authorities but there are avenues so anybody who finds themselves under these circumstances need to report it to the police because the police through its cooperation with the US government and other governments can certainly hope to track these individuals down and have the authorities deal with the matter the way it ought to be dealt with."
Jose Sanchez, Reporter
"She say on the website that there are more cases of Belizeans who have been held under different in the United States. Will you be at least be asking the state department to assist in the return of these kids if it is indeed that they are there under false pretenses."
Hon. Doug Singh, Minister of Police
"First of all the police department has to respond to a written complaint that is made by a member of the public. Unless those complaints are made certainly we can look into the matter but we have nothing to go on, the compliant has to provide on the information as to respect to timing, the names of individuals, the possible place where they are because when we seek to get assistance international we have to provide all that information to those governments so that we can be more successful. So we cannot just respond to the media. The media is not always right."
The Williams's have more or less given up on getting back their son through any legal channels since he is now 17 - and they have exhausted all means in Belizean and American courts…..
