7 News Belize

Cross Border Couple Sent To Jail, Not Quarantine
posted (May 5, 2020)
But while the country rejoices in its COVID free status, there are two cross border cases being watched tonight.

49 year old Jose Alfredo Aguilar and 48 year old Dalia Aguilar, both from San Jose village, Orange Walk are at the Hattieville prison in isolation tonight. They pleaded guilty to crossing the borders illegally and were sentenced to three months in jail.

They are the parents in the family of four that had been caught slipping into Belize on Saturday afternoon. They were captured on camera coming over an illegal crossing.

And while yesterday Commissioner Williams told us that the couple would be charged after quarantine, there continued to be some confusion about where that quarantine was taking place.

This morning when Laura Patt, the aunt who has been charged to quarantine her nephews, called in Despierta Belize she confirmed that her sister and brother in law had been taken directly to Hattieville. She spoke in Spanish and we have translated it:

Voice of: Laura Pat, Sister of Detainee
"The woman they detained is my sister. And I'm calling to inform all of you that I know that my sister made a mistake but let he who is free of sin cast the first stone. I received a call from Human Development informing me about the children. My sister authorized me to look out for the children. I know the risk that I'm taking but for those that don't have siblings, nieces or nephews, or family in general. You can't turn your back on family. Cami when I arrived to look for the kids at the police station immigration, police, human development. They didn't know where to take the kids. Because there is no place to quarantine them. So, what do I do with this case? The best option was to bring them home following all COVID-19 protocols. So, Cami if we're following a law why, why, why use a mask? Why did the soldier who appears behind my sister in the video wearing an immigration T-shirt, why didn't he, at any moment, have on a mask?"

"This is what the kids are telling me at no point in time did they remove the mask. Also Cami it's an injustice that the soldier would have hit my nephew with his rifle. A 12-year-old boy. I have pictures of the bruise that my nephew has on his foot for defending his mother. The soldier struck him but the strike was for his mother."

"Cami yesterday they took my sister and my brother in law directly to Hattieville. And yesterday Chester Williams said that they need to spend 21 days in quarantine?"

"So why did my sister have to go? I know she made a mistake but why did she have to go to Hattieville?, Directly to Hattieville."

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