BELIZE CITY, Fri. Dec. 28, 2018– Two convicted murderers, Leslie Pipersburgh, 41, and Patrick Robateau, 39, who are serving life sentences for the murders of security guards Kevin Alvarez and Fidel Mai, are to get fixed sentences on January 18, 2019, when they appear before Justice Colin Williams. The sentences will be in accordance with a recent ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice, which stipulates that persons convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment are to get fixed sentences.

Pipersburgh and Robateau, former employees of Bowen and Bowen, committed the murders in July 2002 when they robbed Bowen and Bowen’s sales proceeds from the company’s compound on Slaughterhouse Road.

In March 2004, apart from the murders of Alvarez and Mai, they were convicted of the murders of David Flores and Cherry Tucker, who were shot and killed near the seaside in Buttonwood Bay. The two convicted men had been sentenced to death. They appealed their convictions and sentences and in 2008 the Privy Council quashed their convictions, set aside their sentences and ordered a retrial. At the retrial in April 2011, they were found guilty of the murders of Alvarez and Mai and they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

But based on a no-case-to-answer submission that was made by their attorneys which was upheld by the judge; they were found not guilty of the murders of Flores and Tucker. They appealed their convictions and sentences but their appeals were dismissed by the Belize Court of Appeal. Today, through an error, Pipersburgh and Robateau were brought from prison and taken into the courtroom where Justice Antoinette Moore was hearing applications for bail. It was then learnt that they were not there for bail consideration and their coming to court was a mistake. Nevertheless, members of the Gang Suppression Unit were present to provide security.