International

Honduran Vice Minister of Security survives armed attack

Photo: Diario La Prensa

December 6 |

The Vice Minister of Security of Honduras, Julissa Villanueva, escaped unharmed from an attack against her on Tuesday, perpetrated by armed men while she was driving her vehicle in a sector of the capital Tegucigalpa, near the America neighborhood, in the vicinity of Toncontín Airport, police sources reported.

Authorities stated that it was confirmed that it was two unknown persons who shot at the official’s van, who was traveling with her security personnel. Fortunately, Villanueva was unharmed, as the armored vehicle protected the occupants.

“I am fine, but I feel uncomfortable when they tell me that they hear gunshots, however, I told them (bodyguards) to calm down or calm down and investigate because these people are really going to kill me,” she told the local press. After the attack, National Police agents patrolled the area in search of those responsible for the attack.

Villanueva recalled that she has indeed received intimidations in the last weeks, which increased after the denunciation she made for the appearance of bullet casings from National Police weapons in the massacre of inmates in the National Female Penitentiary of Social Adaptation (PNFAS), in Támara.

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In a television interview, the undersecretary assured that the threats and intimidations come from the very institution where she works. “I will not tolerate that anyone obstructs my work and I have a scientific technical unit that works with me, a team of experts who investigate, how can I not know that the messages come from this same Secretariat”.

She also recalled that, since she headed the Intervention Commission in the National Penitentiary Institute (INP) for the massacre of the 46 inmates, she faced many obstacles, as she did when she tried to investigate the murder of soccer fan Wilson Perez in the northern part of Honduras and other emblematic cases.

So far, neither the Minister of Security, Gustavo Sanchez, nor the Undersecretary of Security herself have offered information on the investigative advances that would reveal who would be behind the threats against him.

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