Amnesty International Report 1995 - Belize

Six people were sentenced to death and seven people remained on death row. On appeal, four death sentences were commuted and one case was dismissed. No executions were carried out. Lorna James was sentenced to death in February for murder, but on appeal to the Belize Court of Appeal, the verdict was overturned and a retrial ordered. At her retrial she was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Marco Tulio Ibañez, a Guatemalan citizen, was sentenced to death for murder on 3 March, but the case against him was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 8 March. Another Guatemalan citizen, Roberto Yotxol, who was sentenced to death for murder on 6 July, had his sentence reduced by the Court of Appeal to 25 years' imprisonment for the lesser charge of manslaughter. At the end of the year three men who were sentenced to death during 1994 in separate cases – Pascual Bull, Hernan Mejia and Wilfredo Orellano – were awaiting the outcome of their appeals which took place in November and December. In late November Governor General Sir Colville Young signed three death warrants for the execution on 9 December of Lindsberth Logan, Alfred Codrington and Salvadorian citizen Nicolás Antonio Guevara. All three, who had been sentenced to death for murder, had their appeals to the Court of Appeal and the Advisory Council dismissed. They were granted stays of execution by the Governor General following a decision on 7 December to allow leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) in London, which is the final court of appeal for Belize. Ellis Taibo remained on death row awaiting the outcome of an appeal hearing before the JCPC. He had been sentenced to death in August 1992 for rape and murder (see Amnesty International Reports 1993 and 1994). Dean Edwardo Vasquez and Catalino O'Neil won their appeals to the JCPC, which on 29 June announced that the verdicts in both cases should be reduced from murder to manslaughter (see Amnesty International Report 1994). The JCPC concluded that having regard to the provisions of the Belize Criminal Code and the Constitution, the judge's direction of the jury was not sound in that he had wrongly directed the jury that the "onus was upon the accused to prove extreme provocation on the balance of probabilities". The cases were returned to the Court of Appeal in Belize for sentencing. In December Amnesty International appealed to the Governor General and the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Manuel Esquivel, on behalf of those under sentence of death, expressing concern about the possible resumption of executions in Belize after an interval of nine years. Amnesty International called for the abolition of the death penalty.