Indeed it is a 30 year sentence for murder - handed down earlier this year - but no one told the family that. When we spoke to his oldest sister and his father last week - they did not know that he had been convicted and sentenced. Matter of fact, they did not even know where he was jailed - and had not seen him in over a year. It is clear that no one in authority cared to update them. We asked the Minister what accounted for this total breakdown?
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Foreign Affairs
"Yeah, I think I really can't answer that. The reality is, a number of you know, exchanges were done. But again, they live in a very rural community. So, you know, they said they made reports, certain reports to the police. Apparently those were not followed up on. We don't know. In terms of foreign affairs, we know of one call that was made to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I think, in 2023 or so. And based on that call, certain actions were taken. Certain actions were taken to try to get Mr. Pop's birth certificate. There was an issue of determining whether or not he was, in fact, a Belizean national. There was great difficulty in getting his records from the Vital Statistics Unit. As you know, there are many problems with that. So it took a few months to even get his records, but the ministry got his records and forwarded those to his, to the embassy in Guatemala and to his lawyers. So, you know, it's something we are taking very, very seriously. And as I said, we're making every effort to ensure that we deal with it with a sense of urgency to try to see what we can do, to try to get Mr. Pop to to be repatriated to Belize, or to pursue a legal appeal for him. Because his lawyer certainly feels that there are strong grounds for an appeal in Guatemala."
