Honduras Arrests 3 Over Juan Lopez Killing, Including Ex-Mayor Adan Funez
Updated
Updated · Al Jazeera English · May 12
Honduras Arrests 3 Over Juan Lopez Killing, Including Ex-Mayor Adan Funez
11 articles · Updated · Al Jazeera English · May 12
Adan Funez was seized at his home Tuesday with businessman Hector Eduardo Mendez and Juan Angel Ramos Gallegos, more than a year after prosecutors say they orchestrated environmentalist Juan Lopez’s 2024 murder.
Prosecutors called the three men the intellectual authors of the killing of Lopez, an anti-corruption activist who led opposition to an iron oxide mine in Colon and had publicly demanded Funez resign days before he was shot seven times.
The arrest targets a figure long accused by local church and environmental leaders of spearheading the assassination; a trial for the three is scheduled to begin next June, after several lower-level arrests months earlier.
Lopez’s death drew appeals for justice from Pope Francis, the UN and the Biden administration, and revived memories of Berta Caceres’s 2016 murder as a symbol of corruption and impunity in Honduras.
Latin America recorded 117 killings of environmental and land defenders in 2024—82% of the global total—underscoring the risks faced by activists in places like Tocoa, where anti-mining campaigners have also been jailed.
Can one trial bring justice when Honduras's own laws are used to prosecute environmental defenders?
A mayor is arrested for an activist's murder. Will the corporations funding the conflict also face justice?
18 Environmental Defenders Killed in Honduras in 2023: The Murder of Juan López, Mining Conflict, and the Fight for Justice
Overview
The report traces the murder of environmental activist Juan López in September 2024 and the subsequent arrests of both the alleged shooters and masterminds behind the crime. López, a prominent defender of Indigenous and environmental rights in Honduras, was killed after denouncing corruption and opposing a controversial mining project. Within weeks, three suspects were arrested for carrying out the shooting, and their case moved toward trial. Nearly 20 months later, authorities arrested three alleged masterminds, signaling progress in the investigation. These developments highlight the dangerous climate for activists in Honduras and the ongoing struggle for justice and accountability.