Sanchez faces new gun charges

Jose Sanchez

(CNS): Just one month after walking away from a murder charge, Jose “Pito” Sanchez (28) from West Bay is facing another firearms charge. Sanchez and three other people were arrested following the discovery of a handgun in a car during a police traffic stop early Saturday morning. He and a 21-year-old man and 26-year-old woman from Bodden Town have all been charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm.

The other man and the woman have also been charged with possession of ganja with intent to supply after a home was searched following the arrest of the group.

All three appeared in Summary Court Tuesday and Sanchez, who has been free for less than five weeks, was remanded in custody. Police said a fourth passenger in the vehicle, a 45-year-old man from Bodden Town who was also arrested, has been bailed to return to the George Town Police Station pending further investigation.

On 4 June Sanchez was acquitted of the murder of special Olympian Solomon “Solly” Webster after Grand Court judge, Justice Charles Quin, threw out the case against the West Bay man because of a lack of evidence against him and the possibility of another man being the killer. Webster was shot in the leg in a yard on Miss Daisy Lane in West Bay during a brawl between himself, Sanchez and Shaquille Bush last September. The medal-winning athlete died as a result of the wound and delays in his receiving medical attention.

Sanchez was charged shortly after the shooting and was remanded in custody for almost nine months before he was released after the case was thrown out. It was the second time he had walked away from a murder charge. Four years ago, in 2011, Sanchez was found not guilty following a judge alone trial for the murder of  25-year-old Alrick Peddie, who was gunned down in a yard off Willie Farrington Drive in West Bay in March 2010 during a period of gang-related violence.

Robert Aaron Crawford, Roger Deward Bush and Sanchez were all acquitted by Justice Karl Harrison, who found the evidence from the crown’s only eye-witness contradictory, inconsistent, and implausible.