April 2004
Human rights groups estimate that there have been more than 2,000 extrajudicial executions between 1998 and 2002. The studies reveal that the majority of the victims are poor and have little education.
Investigations carried out since the 1990s by human rights organizations have found that gang members and police officers are responsible for the deaths. Both delinquents and innocent people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time have been killed.
Each human rights organization keeps its own records of extrajudicial executions. The Honduran Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CODEH) reports a total of 68 extrajudicial executions and the names of the victims, including some police officers.
"In the 80s, Honduras was dominated by the military and today Honduras is dominated by the police, which is just as bad. But the worst part is that the same military people from that era are now in key leadership positions among the police, so that they are doing the same things they used to in the 80s," said Berta Oliva, Director of the Committee for the Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH).
Casa Alianza (Covenant House) issued a report saying that 68 percent of the murders of children and adolescents are committed by unkown persons, 14 percent by gangs, 12 percent by "death cars," 3 percent by the National Police, 2 percent by civilians and 1 percent by private guards.
Unknown persons:
Sixty-eight percent of the murders of minors are attributed to "unknown
persons," with the understanding that these could include gang members,
police officers, paramilitary groups like those associated with the death
cars or civilians who have decided to take the law into their own hands.
Gang members:
The second group implicated in the killing of minors are gangs. Many gang
members are also victims themselves at the hands of third parties.
Death cars:
Groups of heavily armed men and women wearing masks drive around in cars
with dark windows and no license plates, known as "death cars."
According to witnesses and investigations, they are the third group of
people responsible for executing Honduran minors.
National Police:
Various reports on the subject identify a certain percentage of the killings
of children and adolescents as extrajudicial executions, murders deliberately
committed by government employees or committed with their knowledge and
consent.
According to Casa Alianza's study, the fact that the proper authorities have not investigated and brought the guilty parties to justice in the many murders committed with police involvement could mean that the government of Honduras is giving its consent in these killings.
Private guards
and security committees:
In 2002, CODEH issued a document reporting 12 cases of murders allegedly
carried out by member of Citizen Security Committees.
Citizen Security Committees are covered in Article 102 of the Law for the Organization of the National Police, issued on July 18, 1998. The law allows for "the promotion of the organization of Community Security Committees" by municipalities.
The Security Committees, also knowns and Vigilante or Guard Committees, arose in response to growing violence and insecurity in many areas of the country where there is little police presence.
The following cases are documented in Casa Alianza reports.
"The Four Cardinal Points"
The case now know as "The Four Cardinal Points" began with the arrest of 15-year-old Marco Antonio Servellón, 19-year-old Diómedes Obed García, 17-year-old Rony Betancourt Hernández and 32-year-old Orlando Álvarez Ríos.
The four young men were picked up in police raids carried out on September 15, 1995 near the National Stadium. They were taken to Regional Command Office #7 in Tegucigalpa, where dozens of other prisoners witnessed police officers torturing and threatening them with death.
According to case records, the prison registry records their names as leaving the prison on September 16, 1995 at 11:00 a.m. The records show the signature of the Police Chief where the young mens' signatures should be.
Their bodies were found with gunshots to the back of the head on the four cardinal points-north, south, east and west-of Tegucigalpa on September 17. Forensics placed their deaths between 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning and ballistics reports concluded that all four had been killed with the same gun.
Arrest warrants were issued on May 6, 1996 for four police officer and one judge for their murders and the cover-up of the crime. Three months later, the Primary Judge annulled the arrest warrants based on the fact that the witnesses were all delincuents. The decision ignored the eye-witness accounts of twelve individuals who were imprisoned without legal arrest warrants who reported the threats and torture carried out against the four victims.
For a pair of shoes
Luis Sosa Ardón and Alexander Obando Reyes were in the La Merced park in Tegucigalpa at 9:30 p.m. on April 10, 1999. All of a sudden, a uniformed police officer approached them and told them to give him their shoes. Alexander refused and the police officer pulled out his .38 caliber pistol and shot at the boys, saying he would kill them. Alexander ran and managed to flag down a taxi, while the police officer continued to fire at them.
The police officer blew out the tires of the taxi and pulled Alexander out of the car. He managed to pull free and started to run. The policeman chased after him and shot him in the back. Alexander fell forward, dead, into the Choluteca river. It was later said he had been fleeing the scene of a crime.
Emergency crews pulled Alexander's body out of the river the next day. He had been killed by gunshots to his lungs.
Luis Alberto Sosa, Alexander's friend, was able to escape. He gave his testimony to agents from the General Office for Criminal Investigations who were investigating Alexander's murder. According to later reports, the police officer responsible for the crime went into hiding.
On December 10, 2002, the Judge issued an arrest warrant for the officer, who, according to statements from the Ministry of Security, has been in custody for several months.
Presumed gang members
The bodies of Cintia Waleska Rivera and her friend, known only as Wendy, were found on May 23, 2001 in a shallow grave on the side of the El Estiquirín hill near the La Pradera and Altos de Tiloarque neighborhoods in Comayaguela. Although it was never proved, the girls were believed to be members of the 18 Gang.
Their bodies were found already very decomposed and forensics reported that they had been killed 48 hours earlier. They had been buried 20 meters deep and their bodies showed evidence that they had been raped and tortured.
Wendy's hands were tied behind her back with the shoelaces from Cintia's sneakers. According to witnesses, the girls were last seen at a party on Saturday, May 10.
In response to a request for information from the Special Reporting Agency of the United Nations, the Honduran government indicated that the case was being investigated and that the police believed that Cintia could have been killed by members of the 18 Gang.
That theory was never confirmed. In fact, reports revealed that the two girls had been tortured and shot in the head after having been raped, which is a known modus operandi of authorities involved in extrajudicial executions.
Tortured and mutilated
Sixteen-year-old Oscar Daniel Medina and 14-year-old José Hernández were walking near a park in El Progreso, Yoro when they were suddenly detained by five heavily armed men in a pick-up truck.
The men, two of whom were identified by witnesses as agents of the General Office for Criminal Investigation, drew their weapons and forced Oscar and José Luis into the bed of the pick-up.
The boys' bodies were found the next morning on the highway to Mantecal, La Lima. Their bodies were mutilated and showed signs that the boys had been tortured. Reports revealed that one of them had been shot in the back of the head and the other had been shot in the back.
Oscar Medina Cortes' mother told the Special Report Committee of the United Nations that she had tried to enter a complaint against the police who had allegedly killed her son, but that no one wanted to hear her testimony about what happened on that January 11, 1998.
Because of Oscar's mother's complaint to the UN Report Committee made in August of 2002, Casa Alianza (Covenant House) and the Center for International Justice (CEJIL) were able to take the case to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.
Ignoring an order . . . at the cost of a life?
Juan Ramón Antúnez was approached by a police patrol as he and his friends were leaving a Comayaguela bar on the night July 20, 2001.
One of the officers asked to see his documents. Like Juan Ramón, most of the friends with him that night were minors. Because of their age, the police officers told them to go home and warned that they would be arrested if they came back to the bar.
The police came back sometime later that night to find the young men in the same place. They began talking with the boys, and something caused Juan Ramón and one of his friends to start running. According to witnesses, the police officers gave chase while firing their guns.
Juan Ramón's friend escaped unharmed, but Juan Ramón was shot in the back and fell to the ground. Without offering any assistance to the wounded boy, the police continued on their patrol.
Immediate medical attention might have saved Juan Ramón's life. As it was, he died hours later in a hospital. The Public Prosecutor's investigation of the case has not progressed even though there are witnesses who have clearly identified the police officers responsible for the death of Juan Ramón Antunez Alvarado.
According to records
kept since 1998 by organizations like Casa Alianza, the murder of Juan
Ramón Antunez Alvarado is only one of the hundred of cases reported
in which police stepped over the line of the law and killed people.
Although there are few cases listed since the 1990s in the records of
crimes and murders committed against children and adolescents in which
extrajudicial executions are blamed, these few are enough to keep the
population on guard.
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