And in other news, a woman from Turkey, who is currently living in the US, has lawyered up and is planning to take legal action against the police and immigration departments after they detained her brother for three months. Back in August, her brother and three other men - all Turkish nationals - entered Belize illegally with fake Greek passports. They were caught, charged, and taken to court. The judge fined them $500 and ordered that they be sent back to Turkey.
However, that didn't happen. The family alleges that they weren't able to pay the fine and that the four men were kept at the Belize Central Prison for three months, where they were reportedly mocked for their Muslim faith and given pork products to eat.
After three months, they were allowed to go back home, but without their phones and IDs, and with no explanation as to why they couldn't get their belongings back.
According to the woman, throughout this time, she has tried relentlessly to get more information as to why they couldn't just pay the fine like the judge ordered, but she claims all of her emails and calls went unanswered.
She says it's a violation of the rights of the men and she will not let it go. She spoke to us today via Zoom.
Figen Altinyuzuk, Sister of Turkish Detainee
"They got to court and the judge give them $500, for, like, coming illegally to Belize, which is normal. Like, that's fine, because they did a mistake. And I really apologize for that, but it's already happened. And then they got the $500, on 20th August 2024, and they transferred them to Central Prison. And then we tried to pay the their fines, okay. Because like, the judge already gave them everything. Like, he said, okay, you can pay $500 and then you can go back to your country. That's fine. But I spoke with Mr. Sabido. He is my brothers' and other three persons, immigration officer. We got his phone number. We tried to reach out to them, but he didn't answer the phone. never, ever. And I tried to send him the message. He didn't answer it again. Just one time, he called me and he said, oh, I say like, we want to pay the fines. Like, after that and they can go back to their country. And he said, no, you can't because the US embassy doing the investigation."
"I called the U.S. embassy from Belize. I spoke with the officer. I don't know if it's a real name, but he said my name is Fern. I spoke with him like, couple times, I believe three times. And he told me we didn't do any investigation. We just spoke with them. We met with them just one time. It was like 30 minutes. We asked them, what like, what are you guys doing here? Blah blah. And it's like very simple question. And then like we go get out from this case."
"I send the email to Tanya Santos, Debra Estrada, and this man Pulido, nobody didn't answer me. I didn't got any response."
"After three months, we said, finally they are going out and they can go back to their country. And Belize airport, we learned their phones and vaccination cards and driver's license and Turkish national ID, he didn't give it to them. So other personal stuff too. So I said, where is the phone? They called me from the officer Smith's phone And my brother told me we didn't get the our phones. I say, why? Because the officer, Mr. Smith and Sabido I told them, we don't have your phones. The police officer took your phones, and they didn't return us, so we cannot give you your phones."
We reached out to the CEO of the Immigration Ministry who said of the phones, quote, "They are being used to further the investigation into the recurrence of fraudulent passports by Turkish nationals transiting the region and Belize. At the end of the investigation, these will be handed over to the respective embassy for return to their owners." End quote.
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