The third killing for the weekend happened at the edge of Belize's border with Guatemala, in the Toledo Village of Jalacte. That community is directly across the border from the Guatemalan community of Santa Cruz.
Yesterday, sometime around 3 p.m., 36-year-old Justo Ubeny Augustin Martinez, a Guatemalan from San Luis Peten, was at a bar that has been built in the Adjacency Zone between Belize's Jalacte and, and Guatemala's Santa Cruz.
A couple, who are both bus operators, reportedly had a quarrel at this bar, and Augustin got involved to stop the escalating scuffle. Police say that the female operator fatally stabbed him with a broken bottle and tried to escape.
Our news team has been following that incident, and Daniel Ortiz has that report:
Shortly after the violent killing of 36-year-old Justo Ubeny August Martinez, the business place where he was attacked was a mess.
In one area, broken glass and other items littered the floor, and a walkthrough of certain portions showed heavy blood spatter, no doubt belonging to Martinez.
Police arrived to find the aftermath.
ASP Fitzroy Yearwood - Communications Officer
"Sometime around 3 p.m., Toledo Police responded to an incident at a cool spot located inside the Adjacency Zone area, where one Kent Chun, a bus driver of Jalacte involved in a scuffle, involving 2 other persons: a female and a male. I cannot call their names because we don't know which direction our investigation will put us. But we know that the incident initially began between 2 bus operators that allegedly are common-law, in a common-law union, where they were fighting, and we understand Justo Martinez went to separate them in that fight. It is alleged that the female broke a bottle, and stabbed Martinez in the neck. This is from what the report is giving us. We also gathered that Martinez's relatives took him to a clinic somewhere on the Guatemalan side of the border, where investigators learned that he succumbed to his injuries a little before 3 yesterday afternoon."
In the meantime, the female suspect who inflicted the injury tried unsuccessfully to run from responding officers - allegedly in her bus.
ASP Fitzroy Yearwood - Communications Officer
"The driver, the female driver, fled the scene in a bus that was later caught by Toledo Police, and she's now detained pending this investigation."
It is the first time that this bar has caught the nation's attention, but documents we've seen suggest that OAS AND Belizean law enforcement have flagged it as a major national security concern - because it is a structure within the Adjacency Zone - and building in the Adjacency Zone - by either Belizeans or Guatemalans - goes directly against the AZ rules agreed upon by the both Governments in the Confidence Building Measures.
This liquor license from the Toledo District Licensing Board identifies the business place as Rancho El Manacal Salesipuedes - meaning "leave if you can." The owner is allowed to sell liquor for consumption, but only with a meal.
Security forces fear that construction connected to this bar will start to expand, and informed sources tell us that in just a few months that expansion has already started to take shape.
We have contacted Foreign Affairs Minister Eamon Courtenay for comment on what is being done about this bar that continues to expand in the Adjacency Zone.
This evening, he told us that the Ministry is reviewing this matter at this time.
We should note that Jalacte continues to exist as an unregulated border crossing, where contraband goods are regularly smuggled in. And while there is no immigration building, there is a BAHA checkpoint.
