Can the police department properly and professionally investigate its former minister, John Saldivar? There are many doubters - and they point to the fact that in 2013 the police department told Foreign Affairs that they did a background check on Levon Termendzhyan, as Lev Dermen was known in Belize, and found nothing to suggest he had any international criminal activities.
The man who signed off on that memo was Assistant Commissioner Marco Vidal. He was the head of Special Branch at the time and is now also the person in charge of the Saldivar investigation.
Critics argue that Vidal already gave the green light to Saldivar's very shady associate and patron Levon Termendzhyan, so can the senior cop be trusted to lead such a high profile investigation into Saldivar?
That suggestion caused some disquiet in the senior command - which is eager to prove that, first, there was nothing irregular in the original background screening for Levon Termendzhyan, and two, that they can investigate their former minister.
We went to the JICC office in Belmopan this evening to see what happens when you enter Levon Termendzhyan's name into the Interpol database:
Jules Vasquez reporting
This is JICC - the joint intelligence coordinating centre - also known as the Interpol office in Belize. It's not exactly what you would call state of the art.
But these computers are the ones connected to the Interpol worldwide database.
Corporal Elroy Gordon is the Supervisor for the Interpol service
Elroy Gordon, Interpol Supervisor
"Whenever we received background checks, we would normally enter the names on Interpol I-24/7 database."
So what happened when they entered this name back in 2013? That's the photocopy of Levon Termendzhyan's US passport which police received from Foreign Affairs in April of 2013.
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"So what is the status with Lev Dermen or as he is also known Levon Termendzhyan regrading Interpol notices?"
Elroy Gordon, Interpol Supervisor
"For one I dont see how his name would be applicable for the Interpol system."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Why is that?"
Elroy Gordon, Interpol Supervisor
"As mentioned he wasn't a wanted person, for one. My understanding is that he frequents in and out of his country. So there wouldn't be any need to place a notice on the system."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"We are thinking it must be right now in the Interpol database."
Elroy Gordon, Interpol Supervisor
"To be honest there are millions of criminals, millions of persons who commit crimes on a daily basis. Millions of individual who go to court on a daily basis and there won't be need for all of them to enter into the system. There has to be a specific reason and for this case we don't see any reason."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"So if we search it right now what will happen?"
Elroy Gordon, Interpol Supervisor
"Don't take my word for it, let us search it."
And that's what we watched them do: enter the the information directly from Termendzhyan's US passport into the system: name, passport number, date of birth and country of citizenship….click, "search all" and here's the result.
Elroy Gordon, Interpol Supervisor
"So what this reflects is that the individual name reflects negative. His passport reflects negative. No notice would be issued to him as mentioned as before, because for one, he wasn't a wanted person and he hasn't committed any crime where they see it fit that they had to place a notice on him."
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Yes for sure there is a lot of ignorance where Interpol is concerned. Some people are of the belief that Interpol is this database that houses all criminals and their criminal record and even when persons are under investigation they are on Interpol. That is not how it works. As the officer said to you that you get out what is put in by the different police departments across the globe and so if it is that a person has committed a crime in a country, if that country have not placed that person on Interpol or have given a red notice where that person is concerned then you could search Interpol database all year or all day and you wouldn't find anything on that person."
Williams also showed me the paper trail - starting with the request from Foreign Affairs for a background check, through the different layers, from the ministry, to special branch, to JICC.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"I have also given you different documents which showed that Mr. Vidal, who was head of special branch at that time, received a request for an Interpol check on the individual, Levon "Turmenz", or whatever his name is and Mr. Vidal as head special Branch has no control of Interpol. So what he did was to send a memo to the commander of JICC who at the time was Dwayne Sutherland for JICC to run the Interpol check because Interpol falls under JICC the check was subsequently done by Interpol and they sent back a memo to Vidal stating that the check has been done and the Interpol results yield negative, and it was on that basis that Mr. Vidal informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Ministry of National Security that the Interpol check turned out negative on the individual, but in that same memo, Mr. Vidal went further to say that even though the Interpol check was negative that while in Belize Termendzhyan associated himself with a person character and that character is involved in stolen vehicles and other questionable behaviour and that was sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and so from our standpoint, we did what should have been done."
"There is a multi-layer, it goes from one department to another one then to another section within the police department and each of those persons to whom the request had gone responded in a certain way and a certain response came back to them and you saw for yourself that the respond that was obtained still maintained the same up to today, even though the subject is on trial in Utah. There is still nothing on Interpol on him. Interpol is not a criminal record database, so even if it were that he was in deed convicted in any part of the world, if that country where he is convicted does not place the information on Interpol it would not be there. We have thousands and thousand of criminal record for persons in Belize. If you go and search Interpol for them you won't find them, because we don't put it on Interpol. So I just want people to have an appreciation of how the system works and I begged them to please give your local law enforcement an opportunity."
"They said the same thing when we were dealing with the Mason case, that oh, we can't investigate Mason, Mason will walk and this, that... that - they need FBI to come in and do it. We did the investigation, the matter went to court, Mason has been convicted, he is awaiting to be sentenced and that shows that we have a competent police department that can do the job that the people expect us to do."
An important note is that while Levon Termendzhyan is now being referred to as Lev Dermen, he was born as Levon Termendzhyan, and left Armenia at 14 for Los Angeles where he gained US citizenship in the name Levon Termendzhyan.
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