On Friday operations at the Port of Belize were disrupted when police arrested
the captain of the Caribe Mariner cargo ship for damaging Belize’s reef.
This morning the captain – 29 year old Whitman Gentle, a Honduran national,
was formally charged in court for recklessly causing damage to the environment.
In this case the damage is two thousand square meters of barrier reef near West
Turneffe. That is where the ship ran aground on November 21st of last year.
In court Whitman pleaded not guilty and he was offered and met bail in the
sum of US$50,000. He also had to have a Belizean surety in the same amount.
He has to reappear in court on April 23rd. Ws for his ship, the Caribe Mariner
is anchored in the Belize City harbour and will remain there until its attorney
Michael Young applies to the Supreme Court for bail. The containers, including
the 19 filled with papaya, that were supposed to leave belize on the Caribe
Mariner were loaded onto a sister ship, the navigator, yesterday.
The Department of Environment says the ship caused $10 million in damages.
Negotiations between government and the owners fell through and that’s
why the captain was arrested. The Ports Commissioner Lloyd Jones told us on
Friday that Whitman Gentle was negligent when he ran the ship on the reef.
For some perspective, the Westerhaven which ran aground on January 13th damaged
10,000 square meters of pristine reef. Captain Fritz Schroeder was never charged
but the ship was. It is out on bail and no longer makes stops in Belize.
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