His sexual assault case is scheduled to be heard in
the Supreme Court in 2023.

BELMOPAN, Wed. Sept. 7, 2022

Alexis Rosado, former Ambassador of Belize to Guatemala and Co-agent in the preparation of Belize’s legal response to Guatemala’s claim to Belizean territory which has been submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), was back in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday for a preliminary inquiry in the case of rape brought against him. Since the offenses for which Rosado was charged are indictable, the matter must be heard in the Supreme Court, but, according to Rosado’s lawyer, Richard “Dickie” Bradley, because there are no available Supreme Court sessions at which the case can be heard this year, the hearing of his case in the Supreme Court will take place in a session next year.

“The process of sending a matter to the Supreme Court took place,” Bradley told local reporters following the proceedings. He went on to state that “The Magistrate Court received the statements and the information that is involved in the case,” and also noted that they (the defense) did not offer any submission at that point. “There is a place for us to do that, and today was not that day, so the Magistrate has sent it on to the next session of the Supreme Court,” Bradley said.

Although Rosado was arraigned on Wednesday, April 20, in the Belmopan Magistrate’s Court, where sexual assault and rape charges were brought against him in connection with the allegations of a woman in her twenties that he had engaged in illicit sexual relations with her since she was 13, the case against him was not included in the lineup of trials that will take place during the Supreme Court’s September-October Session, which is scheduled to start shortly. “Supreme Court work by sessions. They are not continuously every day like the Magistrate Court, so the Supreme Court is about to start the September-October session in another few days, but this can’t get in that session so this will happen next year,” Bradley said.

In April of this year the former diplomat was arrested and charged with rape and with several counts of sexual abuse of a minor, who is now a woman in her twenties, who made a report in December 2021, which the Police Department and Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) investigated for months before levying the charges.

Rosado, who had been Ambassador to the European Union and was stationed in Belgium, returned home in that month after the allegations surfaced and the directive was given for his arrest by the DPP’s office. He was arraigned in Belmopan by Magistrate Janeli Villanueva-Pennil and received bail. He was charged for a total of eight offenses: one count of rape, one of sexual assault, and six counts of aggravated assault of an indecent nature.

Rosado, one of the leading experts on the Guatemala Territorial Claim, has maintained his post as Co-agent on Belize’s team despite the charges. It had been initially assumed, after he was charged in court, that he would no longer he serving on that team, but in mid-May, weeks before the June 8 deadline for the submission of Belize’s counter-memorial in response to Guatemala’s submission of documents supporting its claim, reports surfaced that Ambassador Rosado had been acting that week as Co-agent at a strategy session in the United Kingdom, during which efforts were made to finalize Belize’s counter-memorial, and shortly after, Foreign Affairs Minister Hon. Eamon Courtenay indicated in a text to a local media house that “Ambassador Rosado remains a Co-agent for Belize for the ICJ case and is in London working on finalizing Belize’s counter-memorial”.

Prime Minister Hon. John Briceño, when questioned by local reporters, had indicated his support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ decision to keep Rosado on as Co-agent.

“I am certain the Foreign Minister has a reason he kept him there, and simply is we are right at the point where we are preparing our counter-memorial to present to the ICJ. Now, God forbid, we did not use his expertise and because we did not use his expertise and we go to court and there is some mix-up and we pay the consequences by losing a portion of Belize,” Prime Minister Briceño had said.

Rosado was Ambassador of Belize to the Republic of Guatemala during the previous UDP administration and was also non-resident Ambassador to Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama.