BELMOPAN, Belize, Former national security minister John Saldivar, whom the United States last week described as a person involved in ‘significant corruption,” says he is being “wrongly accused.”
The US State Department had claimed that Saldivar had “accepted bribes for the improper acquisition of Belizean immigration documents and interfered in public processes for his personal benefit during his tenure as a government official.”
Washington said that section 7031(c) provides that officials of foreign governments and their immediate family members about whom the US Secretary of State has credible information of direct or indirect involvement in significant corruption, or a gross violation of human rights, are ineligible for entry into the United States.
“Corrupt acts such as these undermine the integrity of Belize’s democratic institutions and fuel perceptions of corruption and impunity, diminishing confidence in governance,” the State Department said.
But Saldivar, who served as a government minister from 2008 to 2020, told a news conference late Thursday that while his nine-year-old had not been included in the State Department notice, “my son of 15 years old has been named, my other son who has lived the last 16 years in the United Kingdom has been named, as well as my daughter, my eldest daughter who has also lived in the United Kingdom for the last 16 years, as well as, of course, my wife.
“I find this to be egregious. I find this to be unjust for them to also be targeted in this, not to mention that I find it unjust to also be targeted without any opportunity at all to respond to the charges. But this is not just about John Saldivar; this is about the human rights of all.
“This is about natural justice; this is about due process. Let me state, therefore, for the record, as I have stated many times before. I am innocent of any allegations that have been made against me,” said Saldivar, who appeared at the news conference without his attorney.
“At no time have I participated in any corruption at the Immigration Department while I was the minister or even before or after. And there can never be any proof brought out against me in that respect.
“I challenge the United States government to provide that proof. I have no difficulty in facing a trial, whether here in Belize or abroad in the US, once those pieces of evidence are presented to me so that I may answer properly. I am not a corrupt person.”
Saldivar said he had conducted himself in public life without any blemish to his character, especially when it came to corrupt acts.
“I have guarded my reputation. Unfortunately, incidents like the one with Lev Derman, again, where I was not involved in any corruption, have cast aspersions on my reputation,” he added.
On March 16, 2020, a United States court convicted Dermen on conspiracy and money laundering charges.
He had been accused of defrauding the US government of US$1.1 billion in a biofuel program. German, who acquired Belizean nationality under the name Levon Termendzhyan, was convicted of two counts of conspiracy and eight counts of money laundering. A key witness, Jacob Kingston, had testified during the seven-week trial that Washakie Renewable Energy was used as the vehicle for the fraud.
During the early part of the trial, Kingston also presented text exchanges showing that Saldivar was receiving tranches of cash from German.
Saldivar told the media on Thursday that during his tenure as national security minister, the Coast Guard vessel here was used to ferry Dermin to the so-called coast guard installations.
“It appears that there are people besides the US government because I really don‘t give much weight to them trying to complain that, boy, we give you this boat so you could only use it how we tell you… That is rubbish. We are a sovereign government, and as the minister, I authorized that to happen, and I took full responsibility for that.”
Asked if he regarded the situation as an error of judgment?, Saldivar replied, “I am prepared to concede that it was an error of judgment in terms of, only because we now know what was perhaps the reasoning behind it.
“But for me, there was nothing in it, and I do apologize, and I do take this opportunity to say that it was possibly an error of judgment. But I don’t know that it rises to the level of criminality and certainly does not rise to the level of corruption.”.
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