The criminal case against former UDP Deputy Chairman Alberto August has officially collapsed. According to police reports, the Director of Public Prosecutions has directed police to discontinue the prosecution stemming from the cybercrime complaint made by the now cabinet-benched Home Affairs Minister Oscar Mira.
The Belize Police Department confirmed it received the DPP’s directive and will return all property seized during the investigation, including August’s phones, which he had been fighting to get back for almost a month.
The case began on May 30th, when August was arrested under Section 15(4) of the Cybercrime Act over a Facebook post mocking Mira’s response to the murder of Dr Naun Bonilla. August spent 28 hours in custody before being released on station bail. He never denied authoring the post. “I told them yes, that I made the post and I will stand by that,” he said.
August’s attorney, Michael Peyrefitte, had argued from the outset that the arrest was political retaliation disguised as law enforcement. Peyrefitte said at the time, “You don’t put a person in a pisshouse for a post.”
The dropped charges arrive weeks after Mira himself was sidelined from Cabinet pending an audit into procurement irregularities involving his family. In a June 23rd interview, August described it as a “stirred an ant’s nest” surrounding the growing allegations on the “Mira Millions”.
