After thirteen months of uncertainty, a police court prosecutor told Senior Magistrate Sharon Frazer this afternoon that witnesses for its case against Mayor of Belize City Zenaida Moya-Flowers, 35, and administrative assistant Kiran Budhrani, on 2 counts of failure to adhere to City Council financial regulations, had failed to appear in court after being summoned to do so, and they again could not proceed with the case.
Attorney Michael Peyrefitte then submitted that the Crown had had enough time to prepare the trial against his clients, and asked that the Court’s time not be wasted any further and that the matter be struck out for want of prosecution.
Noting that the matter was scheduled for final hearing from July of this year, Magistrate Frazer granted the request and told the two women that they were free to go and that the case would not be heard again.
Among the witnesses that would have been called to testify were former City Engineer Robert Allen and Goldburn “Easy Glen” Adolphus, a former City Council employee. We have been advised that there is no penalty for witnesses who fail to show up in court.
At 9:00 this morning, Magistrate Frazer had adjourned the matter to allow time for these witnesses to be located. There were also reported personnel problems, with the responsibility for prosecuting the case being switched between several of the regular court prosecutors before a choice was made.
More serious charges of uttering a false document were also effectively sidelined yesterday, Tuesday, after Chief Magistrate Margaret McKenzie ruled that the prosecution had not provided sufficient evidence to merit sending the case to the Supreme Court for trial.
The Mayor was given a discharge by the Chief Magistrate for this case, but she is not fully free of the charges, as she can be re-arrested if sufficient evidence is found.
In making her ruling, the Chief Magistrate made reference to a digital video disk (DVD) submitted by the prosecution at the start of the preliminary inquiry. She said that she “remained ignorant of the contents of the DVD” and that a statement from Channel 7 News’ news director, Jules Vasquez, said nothing to indicate that it contained any evidence supporting the charge.
The DVD supposedly contains the video and audio recording of a press conference held on July 13, 2009 at City Hall, taped by Channel 7, which allegedly featured the Mayor and the late finance director at City Hall, Dwain Davis, originally a fourth defendant in the case before his untimely death from a stroke last November.
Various statements, including one from the manager of Esso Ramon’s Service Station on the Northern Highway from which 22 receipts supposedly for the purchase of fuel in March and April of 2009 came from, were also submitted. The manager had denied having any account for the Belize City Council or issuing the receipts in question.
In the view of the Chief Magistrate, there was thus insufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case on the charges. At the start of the reading of her decision, McKenzie had summarized the role of a presiding magistrate as a “filter” to keep out cases that may have insufficient evidence to prosecute, from the Supreme Court, though, as pointed out by former Chief Justice Dr. Abdulai Conteh in the 2009 case of Said Musa, former Prime Minister, versus former Belmopan Magistrate Earl Jones, the process is not always foolproof.
Former Magistrate Jones had committed Musa to trial on theft charges last March, but the Chief Justice reversed the decision on judicial review in May.
The Mayor, who appeared to be emotional in the courtroom as the decision was read, gave no press interviews as she left the court on Tuesday.
Today, however, she told assembled members of the press on the Magistrate’s Court steps that she was relieved at the outcome of today’s proceedings and offered thanks to those who stood by her, and said that she was now ready to go back to her post on behalf of the people of Belize City.
Moya-Flowers told reporters that she held no grudge against her accusers, and told Channel 7’s Vasquez in response to questions about her status with the United Democratic Party (UDP) that she “is a UDP and will remain a UDP.”
She had faced expulsion from the party in May for comments made at the start of this process that questioned the motives of Prime Minister and UDP Party Leader Dean Barrow in facilitating the charges against her. The matter was last said to be under appeal to the National Party Council of the UDP.
Co-defendant in the false document-uttering case, Dr. Kiran Vanjani, former City Administrator, had been discharged in October after a no-case submission by Anthony Sylvestre.