A young man has been sentenced to twenty months, less seven months, in prison after pleading guilty to being a member of the Afghanistan Clique, a part of the George Street gang. Javan Clare had been arrested on the charge of being a member of a gang and the trial against him had commenced in July 2019. At that time, he had pleaded not guilty to the charge and was on bail until recently, when he had absconded from the country and was caught in the United States. Since he went against the conditions of his bail by leaving the country, he was again detained and remanded until he changed his plea to guilty. Senior Magistrate Tricia Pitts-Anderson had deferred sentencing for Monday, August 3, 2020 when she sentenced him to twenty months, less seven months that he has already spent on remand.
In this case, three witnesses were called to the stand. The prosecution’s main witness was Cpl. Elsworth Young, who established in court the area of Belize City controlled by the members of the Afghanistan Clique. Another witness for the case was an IT expert, Edward Ciau, who could link Clare to images and videos posted to the Facebook social media app, implicating him as a member of a gang. Andrew Bernard, the prosecution’s final witness, testified that on his surveillance of the area, he observed graffiti of which he took pictures.
