Since the start of the year, the killing of the Ramnarace brothers in Belmopan has dominated the headlines. It was a ruthless murder, and the alleged culprit is a police officer from a specialized unit. But Elmer Nah is only one of the rogue cops that the police department has been trying to root out, and they're nowhere close to cleaning out the ranks.
Today the media asked the PM if he's spoken to the Police Minister about the problem, but he went on the defensive, countering that Minister Musa is well on top of a thorny matter.
Reporter:
"Have you pulled your minister to the side to say, hey, look what, we need to hang this by the noose?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I think you don't give enough credit to Minister Musa because it's easy to look, oh somebody get killed, oh they held up somebody, home invasion, it's easy news. The truth is that Minister Musa has been trying to get rid of all the rogue cops as much as possible, he has gotten rid of at least 120 cops but unu nuh the cova that. So whenever he finds that there's a rogue cop, he tries to get rid of them, and in some instances it's easier to pay them off and get them out of the service. The Cabinet fully supports the initiatives of Minister Musa and we're encouraging him to try to get rid of more of them. With the issue of Mr Nah, we need to point out that he has been in interdiction, he has not been an active police officer and you all continue to refer to him as a police officer, he is in interdiction, he is not a police officer as far as we're concerned. It seems that from the evidence and again we still have to wait until we go to court, that he was the one who was behind these murders. The DPP has already mentioned to the commissioner of police that she is withdrawing from this case because for whatever reason, I am told that she is no longer the partner of Mr Vidal, but this is Mr Vidal's nephew so to avoid any issues of any conflict, she has recused herself. I wish our judges would do the same but she has recused herself and even some of her staff so we are looking at the possibility of even bringing in an outside prosecutor and investigator to ensure that we can have an airtight case against Mr Nah and all of those that are involved in these heinous crimes."
