Local News

There was another north side execution for the second consecutive day and this incident was not the regular street gang revenge, but by all accounts, a calculated and precise attack on a businessman.  His name is Alfred Schakron, the owner of one of Belize’s most successful pawnshops.  He was also the second Lebanese businessman to be shot dead in as many days and the police believe that the two incidents are linked.  Love News’ Marion Ali has the story in this report.

Marion Ali

News Reporter

Coney Drive was cordoned off for an hour today as police processed yet another murder scene between nine thirty and ten thirty.  The punctured right rear wheel of this blue SUV and four bullet casings retrieved from the pavement indicated that there were two weapons used.  The slugs found their mark on 51 year old Alfred Schakron, the owner of JEC Pawnshop.  By an eye witness accounts, it was a deliberate attack.  Love News has gathered that a black Ford Escape SUV approached Schakron just as he exited the Body 2000 gym and walked toward his vehicle.  As he did, an occupant of the Escape attempted to wrestle him into their vehicle, but he resisted and they struggled.  It was when Schakron yelled for help that the man reportedly shot him in the chest, the neck and the left side of his body which caused the fatal wound.  Police Press Officer, Raphael Martinez has confirmed that there were two separate weapons used in the murder but they are unsure if there were two shooters.  The black Ford Escape reportedly sped off towards Buttonwood Bay after the shooting.  The bold attack occurred on a main artery that connects the old capital to the Philip Goldson Highway and across from Kiddies Campus Daycare and Preschool.  A woman who was nearby told us that she was alarmed by the brazen attack but that she quickly gathered her faculties and called for help.  A man who was at the gym obliged and rushed Schakron in his Toyota Sequoia to the KHMH Emergency Unit.  But by then, the businessman was barely alive.  Alfred Schakron had just returned to Belize this past Monday.  And police say his murder could be linked to Tuesday’s slaying of another Lebanese businessman, car dealer Abdul Mohammad Azziz Dib, who also returned to Belize only recently.  But while the police are exploring that theory, Yolanda Schakron, who is Schakron’s former wife and mother of his two children, says she is not aware of that.  The murder of Alfred Schakron has hit home for Yolanda, who founded the non-government movement called Belizeans for Justice, to implore the government to crack down on crime and improve the prosecutions branch, is now on the flip side of that appeal. 

Yolanda Schakron

Estranged Wife of deceased

“I don’t know why this happened, I don’t know who else it will be; I am really scared – this is personal now, my children are now fatherless.”

Police have not detained any suspects thus far.