by Roy Davis (freelance reporter)

BELIZE CITY, Mon. Aug. 28, 3023

The trial of 9 men charged with drug trafficking, allegedly in connection with the landing of a twin-engine drug plane near Lemonal Village in the Belize District, which had been adjourned for today, has been further adjourned.

Attorney Norman Rodriguez, who is representing two of the accused, asked for an adjournment so that the four men who were previously represented by Senior Counsel Hubert Elrington, can get representation.

The Director of Public Prosecution, Cheryl-Lyn Vidal, who is representing the Crown, indicated that she would not object to the adjournment, although on the last occasion she was there, she was accused of wasting time.

Attorney Leeroy Banner, who is representing three of the accused, also did not object to the adjournment.

Senior Magistrate Tricia Pitts Anderson then adjourned the trial until November 28 and November 30, and expressed hopes that by those dates the trial will conclude. She reminded police sergeant Shane Pook, who had testified at the start of the trial on Wednesday, August 23, that he is still under oath and he is not to divulge any information about his testimony to anyone.

Pook had testified that about 3 months before the airplane crash-landed, he had met three of the accused in an SUV while he was patrolling in the Lemonal area. He said that when he asked the men what they were doing in the area, they said that they were hunting. He said that after the men left, he followed the trail that they had been on, and it led to an unfinished, clandestine airstrip. According to Pook, he received a phone call from one of the men the following day and he was offered $15,000 to allow the aircraft to land at the airstrip. Pook said he declined the offer and he recorded the conversation and gave the recording to his superiors. It was at this juncture in his testimony that Senior Counsel Hubert Elrington stormed out of the courtroom after he announced that he would be withdrawing himself from the case. The accused whom Elrington had been representing are Marlon Reyes, 27; Rennan Reneau, 26; and Dinsdale Thompson, 27.

Elrington’s contention was that Pook’s testimony was not relevant to the charge against his clients, which is drug trafficking of 67.9 kilos of cocaine that was found in 2 bales in a boat in which they were found in Hill Bank Lagoon. Elrington said that the 23 bales of cocaine that were found in the burnt airplane, plus 3 bales that were later found, were labelled as found property and had nothing to do with his clients.

The airplane landed at about 3:30 a.m. on January 29, 2021. The police had advanced knowledge that the airplane had left South America and that it was going to land in an area between Lemonal and Crooked Tree. They reported that when they arrived at the landing site, they saw the aircraft engulfed in flames.

The police said they pursued a boat that was travelling in the Hill Bank Lagoon, but they were unable to catch up with it.

They then saw another boat coming from the same direction and they intercepted it. The occupants of the boat were the accused men. Two of them, reported the police, were armed with shotguns, while a third had a 9-millimeter pistol. The accused were former special patrol officer Tyrell Talbert, 31; former police constable Byron Clare, 36; former BDF lance corporal Edward Rowland, 35; Fitzgerald Clare, 57; Gareth Banner, 51; Dwight Andrews, 52; Marlon Reyes, 27; Rennan Reneau, 26; and Dinsdale Thompson, 27. Talbert, Banner, Andrews and Rowland were represented by attorney Leeroy Banner. Fitzgerald Clare and Byron Clare were represented by attorney Norman Rodriguez. Reyes, Reneau and Thompson had been represented by Elrington before he withdrew from the case.

Apart from drug trafficking, the men were charged with violation of curfew.

The cocaine found amounted to 28 bales, and weighed over 2,000 pounds with an estimated street value of 17.6 million dollars.