On August 25th, Commissioner of Police Richard Rosado made this claim:

Richard Rosado, Commissioner Of Police
“Let me be unequivocally clear. The police department was not involved in the apprehension or the alleged extradition of Mr. Budna. Certain serious allegations were made. And from our initial investigation, what is being alleged was not conducted by our police officers or were not sanctioned by the senior commander of the police department.”

“I will unequivocally state that at no time, I, nor the police department was involved in the apprehension of Budna or to his alleged extradition. And I will maintain that.”

We now know that is likely untrue. Based on evidence we have seen, Police officers were involved in the abductIon. But, why would he repeatedly make such a sweeping statement when he knew it could be easily disproved?

And now we can ask the same about the Prime Minister who has twice in four days made the same claim for his Cabinet:

Friday September 13th, 2025
John Briceno, Prime Minister
“Our government had nothing to do with this. Our government did not sanction this and we will make sure that something like this could never happen again.”

Tuesday, September 16th, 2025
John Briceno, Prime Minister, State of the Nation
“With regard to this recent controversy surrounding citizen Joseph Budna and his alleged abduction and reappearance in Guatemalan custody, I wish to reiterate that this government did not and would never sanction and extrajudicial extradition of any Belizeans no matter their station.”

But, he doesn’t know that – and we know he doesn’t know because he didn’t ask:

Courtney Menzies:
“Have you asked the ministers personally whether they had any involvement?”

John Briceno, Prime Minister
“But that’s not something for Cabinet to discuss.”

Courtney Menzies:
“But have you asked the ministers whether they have involvement?”

John Briceno, Prime Minister
“Yes we have, we have discussed this and he has said he’s not involved.”

Courtney Menzies:
“The other ministers.”

John Briceno, Prime Minister
“When we mentioned it in Cabinet, obviously when it first happened it was mentioned but we didn’t have any discussion and everybody recognized that this was not something that was sanctioned by the government.”

“Everybody recognized” – very vague language and very meaningless.

The fact is he did not ask. The last Prime Minister put in such a position to ask his Ministers if they were dabbling in dirty deeds was Dean Barrow in January of 2020, when it was revealed in a Utah courtroom that Lev Dermen had sent a tranche of cash to one of his Cabinet members:

posted (January 15, 2020)
Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“What I did was, yesterday in our cabinet meeting I require each cabinet member to say whether he or she could have any reason to believe that he or she would be the person or that they would be the persons to which the material is referred. Let me put it another way, did anyone in this room (talking about the cabinet room yesterday), received $25,000 US dollars a month over a period of time from this Mr. Lev or Mr. Kingston or some third person that at one time Mr. Kingston said was used as an intermediary and the answer came back no. Other question: Did anyone in this room received funds from Mr. Lev by way of an electronic transfer? And the answer came back no.”

When it was – inevitably – revealed that it John Saldivar had received campaign contributions – he was removed as UDP leader and later forced to resign from Cabinet.

So while Barrow did not get a truthful answer from his Cabinet, Briceno hasn’t even asked his.