Two customs officers have been criminally charged for, quote, "inciting entry into Belize illegally" and, "abetment to entering and exiting Belize illegally."
PG police have charged Jarrett Tillett and his senior officer Richard Garbutt for these offences; they received police bail and will be arraigned at the end of the month.
This is all in relation to the Guatemalan Cargo vessel, the "Smiley 3" that docked at the Punta Gorda Port on Saturday night.
We've been reporting on the case since Tuesday when the Commissioner of Police explained the unusual charges and the justification for them:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"The custom officers both custom officers, the officer in charge and the one that was on spot will be charged for in sighting the illegal entry of a vessel into the country and the conspiracy to cause a vessel to enter the country illegally. The importer of the cargo has said to us it was the officer in charge of the customs port in Punta Gorda that authorized him to bring the vessel to that port with a view to get the goods into Punta Gorda Town and customs will be charging for the unaccustomed goods."
Well, it appears, Customs will do no such thing. Our best information is that the importer will be allowed to clear his goods - at another Port -without a fine, and the customs officers will not be charged for any customs offences. In fact, no one will.
Indeed, it seems the Police Department is on its own with this one - and Customs is standing by its officers as having done nothing wrong or irregular in the circumstances.
First off, the importer has given police a statement saying that it is he who contacted the senior customs man, Richard Garbutt to ask if he could bring in the vessel. But he did this when the "Smiley 3" was already in Belizean waters. He said in his statement that Garbutt did not like the idea that the vessel was coming into the PG Port, but authorised it. He allegedly told the importer that the vessel would he offloaded and kept in storage until they could be properly cleared. But, of course, we now know, it wasn't kept in storage, but the cargo was loaded into the importer's cargo trucks, ready for the road. But, in his statement Garbutt says he gave the directive that the cargo should be stored in the trucks because the port facility was closed. So, Garbutt says customs planned to store the goods in the trucks, within the customs compound until they could be cleared after the weekend.
But, the Commissioner says that a number of key agencies were kept out of the picture - which he found suspicious:
Chester Williams
"In order for a boat to come into the country of such nature, there are several things that must be done. It must get the preclearance from port authority, preclearance from customs and immigration and there is a boarding team that normally goes on board which would be customs and immigration, health, BAHA as the case may be and in this particular instance, the only agent was there was customs, the other agencies were absent, which means that the activity which was taking place could not be lawful."
The Customs officer Richard Garbutt said he did try to contact the Officer Commanding for immigration in Punta Gorda - but without success.
And now, he's gotten attorney Leisje Barrow to represent him - and she says the first thing she's doing is writing a letter to the commissioner of police demanding that he retract his defamation by innuendo that her client may have received some consideration to facilitate the shipment.
She says as a senior officer with 34 years at customs - Garbutt was doing as he was supposed to do, since he could not send the vessel back to where it came from, which could have opened up for other illegal actions to take place. So, she says, he acted properly to land the vessel and hold the cargo until it could be cleared on the next working day.
She added that he was out fishing that day and he had no knowledge that the vessel was arriving so he could not have "incited" its entry to Belize.
