Posts Tagged ‘Honduras’
June 1st, 2012
Ten suspects have been arrested as part of the investigation into the murder of Alfredo Villatoro in
Honduras, including one policeman. Villatoro
was kidnapped earlier this month, and his body was found dumped, dressed in police uniform. He had been shot twice in the head. On Sunday five suspects were arrested, and a number of weapons were seized from their homes. Police also seized two cars believed to be linked to the kidnapping.
Other arrests have been made, and two prison inmates are being questioned, after a call from a mobile phone traced back to the prison was made to Villatoro’s family.
May 24th, 2012
Arrest warrants were
issued this week for five suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Honduran radio journalist Alfredo Villatoro. The suspects are reported to have been in possession of the chip of the mobile phone used to call Villatoro’s family. Testifying before a judge on Tuesday, three of the suspects said they had found the chip on the street. On 17 May
Honduran authorities also launched an investigation against two prisoners, with the country’s National Police confirming a call was made to the Villatoro family from a jail cell while the journalist was still captive. Villatoro was a director of HRN radio, one of Honduras’ major broadcast stations.
May 11th, 2012
A senior radio journalist has been
kidnapped in
Honduras, outside the country’s capital Tegucigalpa. News presenter on HRN Radio Alfredo Villatoro
was abducted on the way to his office on Wednesday morning. The journalist’s captors contacted his family, and it is believed they will seek a ransom. Three people have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping. The abduction comes three days after journalist and rights activist Erick Martínez Ávila was
found dead at a roadside.
May 10th, 2012
A journalist and human rights activist has been
found dead in
Honduras. Erick Martínez Ávila, who worked for the Honduran LGBT group Kukulcán, was found dead in a roadside ditch on 7 May. The journalist was reported missing on 5 May, and had not been seen in public since he attended a demonstration with the LGBT community on 1 May. The motive for the murder remains unclear, but it is believed the journalist was strangled.
April 27th, 2012
A prominent
Honduran TV presenter was
murdered on Monday morning. Noel Alexander Valladares, host of popular show El Tecolote (“The Owl”) on Maya TV, based in Tegucigalpa, was shot as he left the station. Eyewitnesses report that four men jumped out of a white van and opened fire on the journalist and his companions. Valladares was accompanied by his uncle and bodyguard, who were also killed in the attack, and his wife and co-presenter was seriously injured. Valladares is the third journalist to be killed in Honduras this year.
March 13th, 2012
A radio broadcaster has been
killed in Sabá, northern
Honduras, making him the 18th journalist to be killed in the country since 2010. Fausto Elio Hernández, host of The Voice of the News programme broadcast on local station Radio Alegre, was hacked to death by a machete-wielding attacker on 10 March.
While police have reportedly said the killing is not related to Hernández’s work as a journalist, Honduras has the
second-highest murder rate for journalists in Latin America, after Mexico.
January 20th, 2012
Honduran lawyer Jose Ricardo Rosales was
shot dead by three hooded gunmen on 17 January, three days after he was quoted in newspaper Diario Tiempo, accusing police officers in the northern town of Tela of torturing prisoners. The Honduras College of Lawyers claim that 74 lawyers have been killed in the past three years in the country.
January 12th, 2012
An independent journalist and human rights campaigner in
Honduras has received several
death threats following her involvement in a free expression march last month. Itsmania Pineda Platero was told “We’ll skin you alive, bitch!” in one of four death threats over three days. During one of the calls, there was the sound of a gun being loaded in the background. Platero walked at the forefront of the “Journalism for life and free expression” march on 13 December, which was violently dispersed by soldiers and members of the presidential guard.
