7 News Belize

US Embassy Makes Extraordinary Statement, Subtly Chides FTC
posted (July 12, 2019)
All this week, the news has been about the Federal Trade Commission in the US. In a June 10th filing in a US court, that powerful federal agency took some broad swipes at Prime Minister Dena Barrow and members of his administration. The court documents suggesting Barrow and some of his minister were actively supporting what has been described as the biggest overseas land fraud ever encountered by the FTC.

Well, Prime Minister Barrow this week held a two hour press conference to refute almost everything that was said about him.

And, today in a surprising statement, the US Embassy in Belmopan backed him up - saying the FTC is on its own with those claims. A quite extraordinary release says, quote, "The FTC is an independent entity, whose views and actions do not represent those of the U.S. government. Neither U.S. Embassy Belmopan nor the State Department contributed to or approved the FTC's arguments as presented in its filing. Furthermore, we note that the persons referred to in the filing did not have an opportunity to counter the allegations in court. Therefore, we strongly caution against making any accusations based on the filing.

...This case focused on the actions of a U.S. citizen who was the subject of an earlier FTC consumer protection action and is a convicted felon. No senior officials or institutions of the Belize government were named as defendants in the filing. Due to the recent settlement agreement, we expect no further action related to this case."

As we said, a rather surprising repudiation of this powerful Federal body, and it comes just in time to throw a damper on a planned PUP press conference set for next week - which, we gather, planned to go deep into the document to make allegations of corruption against the Barrow Administration.

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7 News Belize