Dam executive arrested in death of acclaimed environmentalist
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduran authorities have arrested an executive with a dam development company in the 2016 killing of indigenous and environmental activist Berta Caceres, a crime that sparked an international outcry.
Roberto David Castillo Mejia, who at the time of the slaying was executive president of the company Desarrollos Energeticos SA, or DESA, was detained Friday at an airport in San Pedro Sula as he was about to fly to Houston, said Jorge Galindo, a spokesman for the prosecutors’ office.
It was the ninth arrest in the killing of Caceres, a Goldman Environmental Prize winner who was shot to death two years ago after attackers barged into her home in La Esperanza. The award, which was established by San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, recognizes people around the world who have taken extraordinary action to win environmental victories.
Castillo is charged with being an “intellectual author” in the crime, which generally applies to someone alleged to have been involved in a crime but not at the scene. Two others have been arrested for allegedly impeding the investigation.
The Public Ministry alleges Castillo was “the person in charge of providing logistics and other resources to one of the material authors already being prosecuted for the crime.”
In a statement, DESA defended Castillo and its employees as innocent, saying they were “totally unconnected” to the crime and calling the “unjust detention” the result of “international pressure.”
Caceres opposed DESA’s Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, which is on her Lenca indigenous people’s lands.