7 News Belize

From Life In Prison To 8 Years
posted (July 10, 2019)

He was staring down the prospect of life imprisonment, but today, 38 year-old Alfredo Ical, a convicted murderer, got good news when he learned that he only has 8 more years to serve.

Ical was convicted of the 2002 murder of 27 year-old Jose Nunez, a Salvadoran national which happened on a Banana Farm in the Stann Creek District. 

The evidence in his original trial indicates that Ical and another man were walking on a road connected to the farm when they met Nunez. 

Ical, who was intoxicated, attacked Nunez for no reason, and bashed Nunez in his face with a stone. Ical then chopped Nunez with a machete, then he tied a rope around his neck and hanged him from a tree.  Ical was convicted and sentenced to life in 2005 by Justice Michellle Arana.

But, a mandatory life sentence for a murder conviction is no longer an option after it was scrapped by the Court of Appeal, and so, Ical was taken before Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin for a re-sentencing hearing. Before deciding on a new sentence, Chief Justice Benjamin heard the aggravating factors from Crown Counsel Portia Ferguson and the mitigating factors from defense attorney Leslie Mendez. Ferguson submitted that Ical had committed the act unprovoked and that he had initially blamed his companion for Nunez's murder. In mitigation, Mendez said that Ical was only 21 at the time, he was intoxicated, and he also had no previous convictions. Â 

After consideration, Chief Justice Benjamin sentenced him to spend 25 years, which takes effect from 2002, when Ical was first remanded for the murder. That means he only has 8 more years of prison time to serve.

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