Honduras Immigration
Director Convicted
The Honduran ex
immiigration director
has been under
preventive detention,
not prison, since May
2005 and was condemned
on Tuesday to nine years
in prison for abuse of
authority in the
"passport case."
Romero illegally sold
Honduran passports to
foreigners, some of them
linked to drug
trafficking, when he was
head of the Migration
Department (2002-2005).
After two months in
prison the ex official
was released despite
evidence of his
relationship with the
family of Juan Ramon
Matta, a Honduran
condemned to life
imprisonment for drug
trafficking in the US in
1998.
Romero authorized
entrance of a plane with
14 Colombians, family
and friends of Matta's
ex wife, Colombian Maria
Alcira Waldurraga.
In addition, he was
directly implicated in
giving illegal visas to
hundreds of Chinese,
Lebanese, Colombians and
Cubans.
Meanwhile, flights from
the US returning
Hondurans to their
country have gone from
three per week to almost
one a day, 400 people
without identity papers
daily, assured Valdette
Willeman, director of
Attention Center for
Returning Migrants.
The NGO, Una Libra de
Amor, noted that this
situation is grabe as
the deportees arrive
back in Honduras with
empty hands and their
numbers make it almost
impossible to give them
adequate aid.
The Bush administration
deported 24,000
Hondurans in 2006 and
that number is expected
to increase dramatically
in 2007 despite
President Manuel
Zelaya's demand to stop
these repatriations. |
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