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Summary
On February 6, 2021, 26-year old Keyla Martinez was detained by Honduran police. The next day, the police claimed that Keyla had hung herself inside the detention cell in the police station where she was being held.
The case quickly became a national scandal. Conflicting evidence surfaced that calls into question the version of the Honduran police. In this episode of the podcast, we hear interviews with Keyla’s family who are fighting for justice and learn about the failed U.S.-funded efforts to “clean-up” the Honduran police force.
Check out the show notes at: hondurasnow.org
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Transcript:
Karen Spring:
Sometime in the evening of February 6, and the early morning of February 7, Keyla Patricia Martínez Rodríguez, a 26-year-old nursing student, was detained by the Honduran National Police. According to the police, Keyla was detained along with a medical doctor, Edgardo Orellana [full name is Edgar José Velásquez Orellana but the media referred to him several times as Edgardo Orellana], who was with her at the time, for violating the 9:00 p.m. COVID curfew. Both were taken to the closest police station in the western city of La Esperanza.
The following day, the Honduran National Police reported that Keyla had died. They claimed that Keyla had hung herself with her sweater in the detention cell inside the police station. The police said in an official communiqué that they rushed Keyla to the hospital, where she later passed away. As news spread of her death, few believed the versions of the police. Keyla’s suspicious death while in police custody quickly became a national scandal. Protests broke out around the police station in La Esperanza, and later in the capital city. No one, especially her family, believed that Keyla had killed herself.
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Suspicious testimony and case facts began to surface shortly after. One included the medical doctor that had been detained with Keyla. Apparently he had been released that same night and was able to return home.
Health professionals at the hospital where Keyla had been taken by police said that she was brought to the hospital after she had died. Initially the state didn’t want to do an autopsy. It wasn’t until protests broke out in La Esperanza and Tegucigalpa demanding an autopsy that the state then relented.
Days of protests in La Esperanza ensued. Police shot tear gas and live rounds at protesters demanding justice for Keyla. In Tegucigalpa, five students were arrested and charged with arson, property damage, and for participating in an illicit protest. They were all demanding justice for Keyla as well.
[Honduran women chant in a protest: “¡Justicia para Keyla!” (Justice for Keyla!)]
Karen Spring:
Days later, the results of the autopsy conducted by forensic medical authorities were made public. The report concluded her death was a homicide by strangulation. Photos were leaked of the bruises found on Keyla’s neck.
Within a few days after the autopsy concluded that Keyla had been killed, the doctor detained with her made public statements to CNN saying that Keyla had told him the night they were detained that she was going to kill herself. This prompted even more suspicion from the public. Who is this man she was with? Why was he released that night if they had been detained together? Did he have connections to the police? Why did his version confirm the police’s version but contradict the autopsy report?
It became clear to Keyla’s family that without pressure they would not be able to ascertain what really happened to her that night, and that without mobilization, they would not secure justice. This is Keyla’s mom, Norma Rodríguez, speaking at a press conference in front of the Public Prosecutor’s office in Tegucigalpa on February 23.
Norma Rodríguez (interpreted):
We want it to be known that we will not stop seeking justice. We demand that the criminals pay for their crimes against Keyla Patricia Martínez. We demand that the Public Prosecutor’s office conduct their work in an objective, diligent, and rapid manner. We thank the people that have accompanied us along the way. It’s not easy, but it’s the right thing to do. The crime against Keyla Patricia Martínez Rodríguez cannot be just another statistic that feeds the impunity in Honduras.
Karen Spring:
Honduras is a country where impunity reigns, where people killed under suspicious circumstances in police custody become a statistic if people don’t exert pressure on the justice system. There are too many murders of women that have been clouded with suspicion and conflicting evidence. Like I mentioned in the last episode about the Berta Cáceres case, it’s convenient for the Honduran state to blame the victim in an effort to detach the murder from structural or political causes.
Keyla’s parents knew from the beginning that the story from the police did not add up. The first to learn of her death was her sister, Nancy Martínez, who was called down to the police station, on February 7, the day after Keyla was detained. Nancy shares her testimony with CPH Noticias [For the full interview with CPH Noticias, go to their Facebook page].
Nancy Martínez (interpreted):
I went into the police station, and the first thing they asked me was if my sister had some sort of mental health problem. I told them, no, none at all. After the subcommissioner got a call, and he started to get into details, that it was negligence, because no one was watching the cell where Keyla was detained, I started to get confused, needing to know what was happening while he was talking on the phone. And when he hung up, he said, Nancy, your sister committed suicide. As you can imagine, I was in shock. And I told them, no, that’s a lie. It was totally false.
Karen Spring:
Suicide? The story didn’t make any sense. Keyla had no history of mental illness. Nancy knew immediately she wasn’t the only one. Her father tells us how the lie they tried to sell the family and the Honduran public began falling apart nearly immediately.
Luis Andrés Sosa (interpreted):
Myself, since the beginning, I knew it was a homicide. The only thing that had to be done was to expose the truth and find out who was responsible, because anyone, almost without any knowledge of what happened, could immediately deduce from the public statements made by the police officials that there were several inconsistencies. Almost immediately, you could tell that he was speaking a bunch of lies. He didn’t even know how to piece together the information, or how do we explain it properly to the public.
And yes, it’s been difficult. The same with what the doctor that was detained with her has to say. Because of the public statement saying Keyla committed suicide, I’ve been emphatically demanding that the doctor not be a coward, and that he tell the truth, and that, please, to tell people what really happened so that there can be justice, and so they punish those responsible for killing my daughter.
I knew it. It was clear that she had been murdered. The only thing we need to know is who did it, who killed her? And the other question, why, why?
Karen Spring:
In my experience of accompanying many human rights cases, Keyla’s father will struggle to find the answer to that question. He may never get an answer. It is challenging enough to secure justice when the crime takes place between private citizens. But in this case, Keyla’s family has to confront the state, and more specifically, the power of the Honduran police institution.
Norma Rodríguez (interpreted):
The truth is that, since we were given the sad news, at no time did we believe it was a suicide. Immediately, when they told us that Keyla had committed suicide in the police cell, we knew that they had killed her while she was detained.
And from there, a bunch of protests started, and we sought help from human rights organizations. Because we know we are up against the police. And we are up against the state. And it’s been very hard, but we are not going to give up. We are going to fight until the people that are guilty pay for their crime.
Karen Spring:
Keyla’s mom’s bravery is admirable. It’s also really difficult. She was in Spain when she heard the news of her daughter’s death and had to find a way to get back to the country immediately.
If the police were responsible for her daughter’s death in their custody, the facts won’t come easy. State-sanctioned impunity, like the one that exists in this case, isn’t just about inept officers being unable to properly investigate a crime. It’s an active process where the people charged with finding out what happened are the ones impeding the investigation.
But not only that, it’s worse. They go out of their way to harass and terrorize the family for daring to ask questions.
Norma Rodríguez (interpreted):
As her family, we have denounced the crime against Keyla. As a result, we have been victims of surveillance, persecution, harassment, and intimidation by repressive state security forces. There are police patrols that monitor our house and go to the places we have been in the last few days. They make loud noises outside our house to let us know that they are there. We can hear them loading their weapons.
A few days ago, a woman dressed in civilian clothes, who was armed, and with various uniformed members of the National Police, was aiming her gun close to us.
So we ask the Honduran people, is this hostility or security? We are scared as we face this context and these issues.
Karen Spring:
These concerns regarding the behavior of the Honduran police are not new. But the problem has demonstratively worsened since the 2009 coup and the deep penetration of organized criminal interests in the police, military, and in state institutions.
We hear from Irma Villanueva, a survivor of a sexual assault at the hands of Honduran police in the context of the 2009 coup. Irma remains a vocal advocate for the rights of women in Honduras and a vocal critic of the dictatorship and its police forces. This is an interview she gave with Radio Progreso.
Irma Villanueva (interpreted):
As a surviving victim of rape by four police officers in the context of the coup d’etat eleven years ago, it makes me sad. It makes me feel helpless and mad. It hurts to know the number of women that have suffered from police abuse of all kinds, and not just sexual, without there being any justice.
I was surprised and learned that our only crime is to be women. We are harassed, we are beaten and raped, showing no mercy with our bodies. This last part is especially true with the police.
Keyla’s murder and case has impacted me for two reasons. The first is that she is the niece of a very good friend from the human rights collective that I once volunteered with. And second, obviously, because as a victim of similar violence, it reminds me of how I was unable to defend myself, and the terror that I felt. The only difference between what happened with Keyla is that she unfortunately died. The police killed her and I survived.
My case is in total impunity. Just like so many crimes committed by police agents, there was no justice for me, even with the accompaniment and support of the Center for Women’s Rights. I went and filed all the relevant legal complaints in the Public Prosecutor’s office. I identified one of my rapists by his physical appearance and his full name. I underwent a physical examination with forensic doctors. I denounced the rape before national and international human rights organizations. And I achieved nothing.
In fact, six months after I did all of that, I was assaulted again by police agents in a second kidnapping that I suffered along with members of my family. I’ve been detained twice. I have been sexually attacked and beaten up twice, and also filed a legal complaint about it. Two times I underwent forensic rape tests, and, in both instances, I was left disappointed.
In the end, I had to flee the country because our lives were at risk. Even the people that helped me, like Father Melo, he received death threats for having helped me. He helped arranged to get me out of the country.
I was one of the lucky ones that wasn’t killed. And here I am, alive, participating in a campaign to denounce violence against women, making my voice heard for Keyla and for all the women that cannot do it for themselves, because they’ve been silenced forever.
Karen Spring:
Who do you turn to when the people who are meant to secure justice and protect you are the ones who are committing the crimes? This is the dilemma that Irma Villanueva and Keyla Martínez’s family have to face. It’s a constant dilemma of a lot of Hondurans who seek assistance when a criminal incident occurs. In Irma’s case, despite doing everything in her power to denounce her aggressors and seek justice, she was left, in her words, “feeling disappointed.”
[Honduran woman chant in a protest: “¡El estado opresor es un macho violador! ¡El estado opresor es un macho violador! ¡El violador eres tú!” (The oppressor state is a macho rapist! The oppressor state is a macho rapist! The rapist is you!)]
Karen Spring:
The problem is that police in Honduras cannot be trusted, particularly when it comes to gender-based violence. In just this year alone, 27 women have been killed, and almost 6,000 women in 12 years, since the 2009 coup. Publicly, the Honduran government says they care about the issue of femicides, or killings and violence against women. They create investigative units to allegedly investigate and get to the bottom of these crimes.
But Honduran feminist groups demand to know what has happened to the money that’s assigned to these special units. For example, the 1.6 million US dollars for the special unit for femicides and the technical investigative agency that is supposed to investigate these crimes against women.
The dictatorship of Juan Orlando Hernández has made public safety a centerpiece of its administration. In various international forums, he has touted his alleged achievements in this area. One of his alleged efforts, along with a lot of support from the US government, is to clean up the Honduran National Police.
Juan Orlando Hernández:
Yo, Juan Orlando Hernández, voy a hacer lo que tenga que hacer para recuperar la paz y la tranquilidad de mi pueblo. [I, Juan Orlando Hernández, am going to do what I have to do to recover the peace and tranquility of my people.]
Karen Spring:
But like in so many Latin American countries, women remain one of the most affected by violence of all types, in the home and in the public sphere. But despite all of Juan Orlando Hernández’s promises to combat crime and recover the peace of the Honduran people, Keyla Martínez’s murder is telling. It serves to prove that Juan Orlando Hernández’s talk of so-called public safety and citizen security ultimately rings hollow. Violence against women remains a serious problem in Honduras, and police violence continues unabated.
And the dictatorship has been unable to clean up the police despite repeated promises to do so. Through an emergency decree in 2016, the government of Juan Orlando Hernández implemented, yet again, a police reform. This second police reform came shortly after the first one failed, and after several high-level police officials were found to be involved in high-impact killings of very outspoken public officials. The public officials that were killed were denouncing police involvement in organized crime and drug trafficking.
According to the online news outlet criterio.hn, since the police reform started in 2016, between 5,000 and 6,000 police had been removed from their positions inside the police. But official reports don’t specify why. Of those removed, only 167 have been indicted by the Public Prosecutor’s office for some sort of crime. It’s not reported where those indictments end up. And in so many cases, the police that have been removed file civil cases against the state for wrongful termination, and then later, the courts order the state to give them their job back. So it’s kind of a confusing process. And it remains unclear how effective the cleanup has been. And it’s also an impossible initiative to keep track of.
Irma Villanueva (interpreted):
The police are an institution that is rotten right at its roots. There are no reforms or cosmetic cleanups that can sustain it as a legitimate institution. The superficial changes that have been made through the years show that, as an institution that is supposed to protect the population, they haven’t done their job. Their job has been distinguished, above all, for repressing people, even when we try to protest and defend our rights.
How many police have been accused of violating the basic rights of Hondurans? How many police have killed, tortured, and raped women, when they have had the opportunity? How many have intimidated, and how many have killed, because their authority is protected by impunity?
It’s about time that the media stop reporting their motto “serve and protect.” We have to ask ourselves what interests the police serve. What, who are they protecting? Because they aren’t protecting the people. I don’t doubt that inside the institution, there are impeccable people that maybe aren’t uniformed criminals. But as an institution that is supposed to protect, it has failed. Honduras is one of the most violent countries in Latin America, with really high levels of criminality. On the other hand, we have one of the strongest police institutions, with a very large budget, and with a brutally repressive police structure, but with the people, not with actual criminals.
Karen Spring:
Who do the police serve and protect? We might find the answer by looking at who has been funding the dictatorship. The US government has been a major funder of the special commission to clean up the Honduran police. Up until a few years ago, the State Department covered over half the budget of the US-Honduran organization called Association for More Just Society. This organization is the main so-called civil society organization overseeing and defending the police reform initiative. The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs inside the US State Department paid the salaries of the two Honduran men that oversee the police reform commission. They do this work alongside the Minister of Security, Julián Pacheco, who has been mentioned as receiving bribes from drug traffickers.
On top of funding this failed initiative, the US involvement with the Honduran police doesn’t just start or end with support for the police reform. The US government provides training to elite members of the Honduran police, sells and donates weapons and equipment to the police, and continues to promote the idea that, within the institution and the context of a drug state, that a community-based police is possible. But despite millions of dollars funded to clean up the police, we still hear of so many stories of police violence, of corruption, and drug trafficking that shines a light on the failure of the initiative.
But that also gives some ideas about what the real problem really is. For example, in the last few years, despite the police cleanup initiative starting in 2016, several high-level police officials have been accused of involvement in drug trafficking and acting as hitmen for drug traffickers. Take, for example, the former police director, Juan Carlos Bonilla, also known as “The Tiger,” was recently indicted by the US Southern District Court of New York on drug trafficking charges. Bonilla had been appointed to the position of the National Police Director while a police cleanup effort was underway.
Active police commissioner Leonel Sauceda was also arrested last January 2020, four years after the police reform commission had started. He was accused of money laundering. He’s believed to also be involved in assassinations and drug trafficking. At least six police have been extradited to the United States for drug trafficking.
In almost all cases, the Southern District Court of New York argues how these police were promoted through the ranks by powerful individuals, including the president, for doing dirty favors, like killing and running drugs across the country. There are several mentions of the Honduran police in acting as bodyguards for drug traffickers, and also for drug shipments, going as far as to physically drive behind vehicles carrying hundreds of kilos of cocaine in order to ensure that the shipments make it safely across the country and can continue on their drug route to the United States.
And then you have the human rights issues associated with the Honduran police, which is what I focus my work on. We continue to denounce, particularly since 2017, the way in which police shoot live rounds at protesters in the streets in several cities around the country. When a protester is killed, no one is arrested, and an investigation is stalled.
At the end of the day, doing an actual cleanup of the police requires a strong political will to actually address the problems that the institution faces. But this won’t happen while there are very strong and particular interests to ensure that the armed institution serves very specific interests that certainly aren’t about protecting the population or women like Keyla Martínez.
There are several efforts in the United States Congress and the US Senate to address US funding for the Honduran police. Several offices have expressed concern with human rights violations and allegations of drug trafficking inside the Honduran National Police. Just this week, several US senators have introduced legislation to tackle human rights issues and corruption in Honduras. The legislation outlines their serious concerns about human rights violations committed by the Honduran police. Another similar law will be reintroduced into the US Congress within the next few weeks. We will cover these two pieces of important legislation in coming episodes. They certainly deserve a thorough investigation and examination.
That is it for the episode today. Thank you so much for listening. Please check out our show notes at HondurasNow.org. And until next time, hasta pronto.