US aids Honduran police chief despite death squad claims; assures Congress he was cut off
Source: Associated Press
US aids Honduran police chief despite death squad claims; assures Congress he was cut off
Article by: ALBERTO ARCE and KATHERINE CORCORAN , Associated Press
Updated: March 23, 2013 - 12:07 PM
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The U.S. State Department, which spends millions of taxpayer dollars a year on the Honduran National Police, has assured Congress that money only goes to specially vetted and trained units that don't operate under the direct supervision of a police chief once accused of extrajudicial killings and "social cleansing."
But The Associated Press has found that all police units are under the control of Director General Juan Carlos Bonilla, nicknamed the "Tiger," who in 2002 was accused of three extrajudicial killings and links to 11 more deaths and disappearances. He was tried on one killing and acquitted. The rest of the cases were never fully investigated.
Honduran law prohibits any police unit from operating outside the command of the director general, according to a top Honduran government security official, who would only speak on condition of anonymity. He said that is true in practice as well as on paper.
Celso Alvarado, a criminal law professor and consultant to the Honduran Commission for Security and Justice Sector Reform, said the same.
Read more: http://www.startribune.com/world/199688691.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Can't wait to see John Kerry sort this out. 
Earlier article on Bonilla:
Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares, Honduras Police Chief, Investigated In Killings
By KATHERINE CORCORAN and MARTHA MENDOZA 06/01/12 11:24 AM ET AP
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — 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.
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/juan-carlos-bonilla-valla_n_1562328.html
