And, on another prison matter….as we told you last week, defence attorneys are complaining about the mandatory 90 day remand for firearm offenses before bail is granted.
But, it it really mandatory? The prison's CEO Virgilio Murillo, the majority of persons detained for firearm offenses do not in fact spend the entire 90 days in prison, and manage to make bail before their time is up
Virgilio Murillo, CEO, Belize Central Prison
"I can tell you that I don't know and I don't sense that there is a backlog so much to do years ago let's say like back in 2016 we did have a backlog issue but I can tell you what I see coming to prison is quite a lot of new cases so I don't see a backlog issue that we need to be in crisis mode about I was even looking at the issue of the fire arms. You know there is this impression that people are being sent to prison for firearm offenses, and they are left to stay here for 90 days before they can get a bill. I don't ascribe to that and I don't share that same sentiment to put it into perspective I saw one particular year in 2017 where 147 persons were charged for firearm related offenses, but buyers and only 13 of those persons were left in prison not having gotten bail by then and I am almost certain that those 13 persons were people who may have just been arrested for firearm related offenses in probably the same month in December. I would say because that population or that count that I gave you would have been 31 December so it's not like the prison is stocking up with hundreds of inmates for firearm related offenses. Let's look at September. By September we had I think 90 something arrested for firearm related offenses, but by the end of September only 12, we're still awaiting to get a bill so it's not that bad."
