The alleged killer of environmental rights activist Berta Cáceres is
surrounded by members of the Military Police for Public Order after
being detained in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, May 2, 2016.
Photo: REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera
Honduran police have arrested four people in connection with
the killing of environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta
Cáceres, including an employee of a company whose project she helped
block, the attorney general's office said on Monday.
Cáceres, 43, who fought to stop the construction of
hydroelectric plants and mines on indigenous territory, was fatally shot
in La Esperanza, Honduras, in early March, sparking domestic and
international outrage.
One suspect was a communications manager at
Desarrollos Energeticos, or DESA, a local company behind the Agua Zarca
hydroelectric project that Cáceres was able to get halted after
mobilizing residents and activists, the attorney general's office said.
DESA did not reply to Reuters' requests for comment.
Two of the other suspects were soldiers, one on active duty
and the other now retired, a spokesman for the armed forces, Lenin
Gonzalez, told reporters.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández congratulated the
investigators and reiterated his pledge to see justice served. But
prosecutors have yet to put forward an official explanation for what
motivated the killing.
Cáceres, who had previously received death threats, won the
Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for her efforts to prevent the
construction of a $50 million dam that threatened to displace hundreds
of indigenous people.
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