The parents of a young man killed after the 2009 coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya in Honduras demanded on Monday a conviction for the arrested General Romeo Vásquez, who was then the head of the Armed Forces. Vásquez was arrested on Sunday and placed in preventive detention awaiting trial as the alleged perpetrator of the military-led killing of protester Isy Obed Murillo, 19, while he participated in a protest a week after the June 28 coup that year.
“If they have charged [Vásquez], it’s because there is evidence (…), we want him to be punished,” said Murillo’s mother, Silvia Mencías, at a press conference. “I’m not doing this [asking] for revenge, but for justice,” she added. Her husband, José David Murillo, reported that their son’s remains were exhumed on September 13 with the participation of a Spanish anthropologist, and it was confirmed that he died from shots from an “army rifle.”
Along with Vásquez, his deputy, General Venancio Cervantes, and former special operations commander Carlos Puerto were detained. All three former military chiefs are retired. On July 5, 2009, there was a protest against Zelaya’s overthrow, husband of current leftist President Xiomara Castro, which gathered thousands of Hondurans near the Toncontín airport in Tegucigalpa.
Zelaya, sent into exile by the military and Congressional leaders who overthrew him, planned to land that day at Toncontín in a plane from Nicaragua. However, hundreds of military personnel prevented the aircraft from landing and fired at protesters to disperse them.
Bertha Oliva, coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras, recalled at the same press conference that Murillo’s case was brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington in 2019. Oliva stated that Murillo’s death “was a crime against humanity,” therefore “it does not expire” nor can it be subject to amnesty.
She indicated that the case regarding the young man’s death was reactivated by the new Attorney General, Johel Zelaya, who took office last November. The prosecutor is not related to former President Zelaya, but the opposition claims he is aligned with the government. They also assert that the capture of the military officers is “political persecution.”
In a message on X posted before being detained, Vásquez wrote: “They will not succeed in silencing me! I never gave an order to attack any Honduran.”
