TEGUCIGALPA – Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Tuesday asked the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate an alleged telephone tap that has occurred on his telephone and that of several other government officials.
Zelaya said that Honduran State Security is going to conduct its own investigation of the matter, but insisted that the Prosecutor’s Office also open an investigation because “it is the institution with the legal faculties to defend the Constitution and prosecute the crime.”
President Zelaya refrained from identifying who he thinks the individual or group is behind the alleged telephone tap. In the past weeks, a dozen or so private telephone conversations between Zelaya and other government officials have been circulated on the Internet and on local radio stations.
In one of the conversations, Zelaya and his secretary exchange negative words about the Parliamentary president and presidential hopeful, Raul Valladares. In other conversations, Zelaya is heard talking to officials about how to control the press, which Zelaya has attacked recently for not publishing “positive” reports of government.
