Joseph Budna has not been in the headlines recently but he's still imprisoned in Guatemala City serving out his sentence - after he was extrajudicially extradited from Belize. But might he be returned to Belize soon? Well this morning the Prime Minister explained that he will propose a prisoner exchange to the Cabinet in order for Budna to be back on Belizean soil, but still serve the remainder of his sentence. Here's what he said this morning on LoveFM's morning show.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I'm going to to recommend to Cabinet and we've been discussing it in a few minutes is to see if the from government to government asks for Budna to be returned to Belize, but to go to jail. We do that with Mexico from time to time we have prisoner exchanges, but the agreement is that you have to spend the time in jail. So I don't know how much years he has left in his case over there. So if he has 10 more years, for instance, we will give an assurances to the government of Guatemala that he will spend the time in jail here."
Host
"Do you see us getting closure on this whole investigation? Because unfortunately, it's one of those things that keeps coming up and people are looking at it."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"We have given a free hand to the DPP, so it's on the DPP hands."
Budna was sentenced to 25 years in Guatemala in 2013 - and escaped back to Belize in 2019.
