New Honduras Top Cop Once Investigated in Killings
Source: Associated Press
New Honduras Top Cop Once Investigated in Killings
By KATHERINE CORCORAN and MARTHA MENDOZA Associated Press
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras June 1, 2012 (AP)
The new chief chosen to clean up a Honduran national police force tarred with allegations of corruption and involvement in murders was accused by the department's internal affairs investigators of running a death squad when he was a top regional police official.
A 10-year-old report on Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares, nicknamed "The Tiger," resurfaced in widely distributed emails and on a local website after he was named police chief May 21 as part of President Porfirio Lobo's efforts to reform a department that is widely accused of killings and human rights violations. The report named Bonilla in at least three killings or forced disappearances between 1998 and 2002 and said he was among several officers suspected in 11 other cases.
Only one of the allegations against the now-46-year-old Bonilla led to murder charges, however, and he was acquitted in 2004. The verdict was upheld by Honduras' Supreme Court in 2009.
Internal affairs investigators weren't able to substantiate many of the cases because of interference by top security officials, said Maria Luisa Borjas, who as head of the police internal affairs department at the time signed the investigation. She was suspended before she finished the report because she had called a news conference to complain about the obstruction.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/honduras-top-cop-investigated-killings-16471965
[center]
Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares[/center]
= new reply since forum marked as read
