INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION PLACE DU PETIT-SACONNEX 1211 GENEVA 19, SWITZERLAND |
CASE N° HOND/02 - MIGUEL ANGEL PAVON SALAZAR - HONDURAS
Resolution adopted without a vote by the Inter-Parliamentary
Council at its 160th session
Referring to the outline of the case, as contained in the report of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians (CL/160/14(a)-R.1), and to the resolution adopted at its 159th session (September 1996) concerning the case of Mr. Miguel Angel Pavón Salazar, of Honduras, Taking into account the communications from the Vice-President of the National Congress dated 12 November 1996 and 23 January and 7 April 1997 conveying a copy of the concluding report of the two investigators appointed by the Head of the Criminal Investigation Branch (DIC) on 4 July 1996 to investigate the murder of Mr. Pavón, Also taking into account the communication from the Senior Assistant of the National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights, dated 24 January 1997, Recalling that Mr. Pavón Salazar was shot dead on 14 January 1988; that the judicial investigations which established a link between his murder and evidence he gave in October 1987 before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concerning " disappearances " came to a practical standstill until, in 1994, the Honduran National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights published a report concluding that the investigations had not been carried out properly, thereby causing oversight of the investigation to be entrusted to the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights, Recalling also that, despite this measure, no progress in the investigations was made by the competent investigating judge of the Third Criminal Court (Juzgado Tercero de Letras de lo Criminal), the latest investigative action having been taken on 26 August 1996, Recalling further that, on 6 March 1996, the President of the National Congress informed the Committee that the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission had been instructed to ascertain the current status of the investigation into the case; that, on 4 July 1996, the Criminal Investigation Branch of the Public Prosecutor's Office (DIC) appointed two investigators to elucidate the circumstances of Mr. Pavón's murder, Considering that, in the final report they delivered in March 1997, they concluded that Jaime Rosales - already presumed to be implicated in the murder in the 1994 report of the National Human Rights Commissioner - and the then Lieutenant Mario Asdrubal Quiñones Aguilar were the culprits, the latter matching the identikit picture established with the aid of the sole eyewitness the investigators were able to locate; that his testimony given at the time before the Third Criminal Court of San Pedro Sula was invalidated, Considering also that, according to the DIC, the investigation will give rise to the corresponding legal action and that, with the evidence that has come to light, the indictment will be lodged with the courts, its success depending, however, " as originally, on the collaboration extended in this different historical period by the Public Security Force and the Armed Forces in locating the presumed culprits and turning them over to the corresponding courts, since there are now a great many police and military personnel with warrants out for their arrest who are still evading justice ",
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