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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Anti-Drug Chief Killed in Honduras
By Mariano Castillo, CNN
TEGUCIGALPA - Unidentified gunmen killed
Honduras' top anti-drug cop on Tuesday, a
national police spokesman told CNN. Gen.
Julian Gonzalez, director of the Office for
Combatting Drug Trafficking, was gunned down
in his sport utility vehicle by two people
on a motorcycle, said police spokesman Orlin
Cerrato.
"The motorcycle approached and fired
indiscriminately into the driver's side
door," he said.
No arrests had been made as of Tuesday
evening, and the investigation remained
active, Cerrato said.
Gonzalez was struck by six to nine bullets
and died at the scene, Cerrato said.
The top anti-drug cop usually travels with
bodyguards, but he was by himself when he
went to drop his daughter off at her school
in the northern part of the capital,
Tegucigalpa, Cerrato said.
Investigators suspect that Gonzalez was
being followed by his killers because the
attack happened after she was dropped off,
as soon as he stopped in traffic, he said.
As U.S. and Mexican authorities have stepped
up counternarcotics efforts in North
America, Central America has become an
important drug transportation point.
Gonzalez had been threatened in the past,
Cerrato said, but it remained unknown
whether the threats were related to the
killing.
"You have to keep in mind that the post he
held carried a certain amount of risk," he
said.
Honduras is in a controversial transition
period between a de facto government that
came to power after a coup and a recently
elected successor.
Tuesday's attack was believed to be
unrelated to the country's political crisis,
Cerrato said.
Colleagues at the Office for Combatting Drug
Trafficking declined to give details of
Gonzalez's tenure and work because they were
not authorized to speak with the media.
"Sadly, he died at the hands of organized
criminals," said one detective. "That's the
only comment I can make."
The brazen killing of a top official is
"another sign of the concern that drug gangs
are expanding their presence," said Maureen
Meyer, of the Washington-based Office on
Latin America, a nonprofit agency that
promotes human rights and democracy.
Honduras is a country with weak
institutions, which make it easy for gangs
to operate, she said.
"I think what we've seen in the past few
years is that you have an increasing use of
Central America as a transit area" for
drugs, Meyer said.
Conflicts exist between local gangs and
increasingly with Mexican drug cartels that
are muscling in, she added.
Some observers say that the country's
six-month-long political crisis over
presidential leadership has created an
atmosphere where organized crime could
prosper.
In March, Gonzalez announced a large bust of
more than three tons of cocaine intercepted
aboard a boat sailing from Venezuela to
Honduras. The Honduran and U.S. navies
worked together to seize the drugs from the
vessel, which was trying to blend in with
fishing boats to sneak toward the coast,
according to media reports at the time. |
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