TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduran authorities on Tuesday arrested three people, including a powerful former mayor, accused of orchestrating the September 2024 killing of environmental and anti-corruption activist Juan López, a milestone in a case that had become an international symbol of impunity for violence against land and water defenders.
The arrests capped more than a year of local and international pressure following the brazen daylight murder of López, who was shot seven times in the chest and head by a masked gunman in Tocoa, a rural municipality in the country’s north. López had been one of the most prominent voices opposing an iron oxide mining project he said threatened dense jungles, protected reserve areas, and the water supply of surrounding communities. Days before his death, he publicly called on then-mayor Adán Fúnez to resign over a corruption scandal. Fúnez, a supporter of the mine and a close ally of former President Xiomara Castro, was taken into custody at his home Tuesday. Two other men — businessman Héctor Eduardo Méndez and Juan Ángel Ramos Gallegos — were also arrested and charged with criminal association to the detriment of fundamental rights.
“These three individuals are believed to be the intellectual authors of the environmentalist Juan López’s death,” Public Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Yuri Mora told The Associated Press. The trial is scheduled to begin next June. The detentions follow a handful of earlier arrests in the case, but Fúnez had long been identified by local religious and environmental leaders as the person they suspected of spearheading the assassination. His arrest, more than a year after López’s killing, was a shock for a community accustomed to impunity.
The murder drew rapid international condemnation. The Biden administration, Pope Francis, and the United Nations each issued statements demanding justice, while many drew a direct line to the 2016 murder of Berta Cáceres, the internationally known Lenca activist killed in Honduras for her opposition to a hydroelectric dam. López, a catechist in his local Catholic church who ran a small transportation business, was a less globally recognized figure, but his killing reinforced the region’s brutal tally: year after year, Honduras and its neighbors rank as the most dangerous places on earth for environmental defenders.
According to the monitoring group Global Witness, at least 117 environmental defenders were killed worldwide in 2024, and 82% of those killings occurred in Latin America. Five of the murders were in Honduras, down from 18 the year before but still a stark figure for a nation of some 10 million people. In Tocoa alone, activists fighting the mine have been targeted for years; eight were imprisoned for more than two years in what their lawyers described as retaliation for their advocacy.
Dalila Santiago, a close friend of López’s and a leader in the movement he helped build, said Tuesday’s arrests were a vindication, but she stressed that the fight is not over. “We’ve been calling for justice for so long,” Santiago said. “And we need the masterminds behind this to be caught and punished.” She urged authorities to pursue others responsible, including the business figures behind the mining project. The Honduran companies involved — Inversiones Los Pinares, Inversiones Ecotek, and their parent company — face separate prosecution for environmental destruction launched by the Public Prosecutor’s Office shortly after López’s death. The companies have defended the hundreds of jobs the mine created and their economic contributions to the region.
The arrests represent a rare victory for grassroots environmental movements in a country where powerful political and economic interests have long operated above the law. For Santiago and those who march under López’s name, the detentions are proof that years of organizing, international pressure, and sitting through funeral after funeral can produce accountability. “It’s a sign,” she said, “that our fight was worth it.”