[2] On 17 September 2005 at roughly 3:30 AM, Abou-Nehra returned to his home in King's Park, Belize City to find 23-year-old Shawn Copious in his yard.
Copious had previously had numerous run-ins with the law, with a conviction for theft and at the time of his death also standing trial for charges of handling stolen goods.
[5] As more detail about the circumstances of Copious' death came to light, specifically the fact that he had been shot in the back from five feet away, then-Senior Crown Counsel Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt wrote to Criminal Investigations Bureau chief Chester Williams to recommend that Abou-Nehra be charged with murder.
[6] In December 2006, Director of Public Prosecutions Kirk Anderson instructed Commissioner of Polize Gerald Westby to charge Abou-Nehra with murder.
He came before Judge Troadio Gonzalez, who ordered that the case be traversed to the following month's court session due to the large backlog of defendants with charges even older than Abou-Nehra's.
[7] In July, Sooknandan had to issue a declaration of nolle prosequi because the crown counsel assigned to the case, Cecil Ramirez, had been suspended from practicing law in 2002 and 2003, leading to a question of whether he could legally work for the Office of the DPP.
[10][11] In October 2007, two of the witnesses Darius Ramos and Anthony Poloni, both constables, were charged with perjury and contradicting previous evidence; they pleaded not guilty.
[12] An internal police tribunal later found that Ramos, Polonio, and Cacho had committed an "Act to the Prejudice of Good Order and Discipline against the Department".
[13] Cacho was reduced in rank and given half-pay, but later filed suit in the Supreme Court against the police department and in 2010 was awarded reinstatement and back pay.