During the night of 22 September 2012 Antonio Trejo Cabrera was murdered. He was attending a wedding that day. When he went outside to answer a phone call, six shots were fired at him. Antonio Trejo was a lawyer who regularly represented poor farmers in the region of Bajo Aguán, who have been expropriated by large landowners. In the period before he was killed, he reported threats directed against him and his family to the local authorities, but no action was taken.
Antonio Trejo recently reached a victory in proceedings that had lasted for over 18 years against large landowners. In two verdicts, the Juzgado de Letras Civil de Francisco Morazán and the Juzgado de Letras Seccional de Trujillo respectively ruled that in total 1,776 acres of land had to be returned to farmers. After both judgments were rendered in favour of the farmers, the threats against Trejo and his family intensified.
Trejo further took action against legislation on the basis of which municipalities could introduce regulations to promote investments in their territory and which enabled them to introduce their own laws and justice systems.
L4L fears that Antonio Trejo was killed because of his work as a lawyer and human rights defender and urges the authorities of Honduras to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation in order to bring to justice to those responsible for Antonio Trejo’s murder.
