A Honduran judge has moved two men accused of ordering the killing of environmental defender Juan López out of pretrial detention and into house arrest, in decisions issued on 31 July and 13 August 2026 that allowed both to return to the town where López was shot and where his family still lives.
López, who campaigned in defence of water and land, was killed on 14 September 2024 as he left a church. Days earlier he had publicly called for the resignation of Adán Fúnez, then mayor of the town of Tocoa, over alleged acts of corruption.
Police arrested Fúnez, Juan Ángel Ramos Gallegos and Héctor Eduardo Méndez on 12 May 2026; prosecutors identified the three as the suspected masterminds of the killing. Four days later, after an initial hearing lasting more than fifteen hours, judge Rosario Díaz Cruz — sitting in a San Pedro Sula court with jurisdiction over organised crime, environmental offences and corruption — ordered them formally prosecuted for murder and criminal association, and remanded all three in custody. Fúnez separately faces proceedings over alleged abuse of authority during his time as mayor.
Grounds unchanged, detention lifted
On 31 July the same judge replaced Fúnez’s pretrial detention with house arrest, citing his age and reported chronic illnesses, without the legal grounds for the original measure having ceased to apply, according to her own ruling. On 13 August she extended the same measure to Ramos Gallegos, again acknowledging that the circumstances behind his remand had not changed. He is serving house arrest in the same area where López’s family lives and where the killing took place. The victims have appealed both rulings, and the appeals are pending before the National Jurisdiction Court of Appeals.
Protection measures still unmet
The International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation Against Torture, working through the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, said they were gravely concerned by the rulings and urged the appeals court to overturn them immediately and to resolve the pending appeals quickly. Both men remain subject to criminal proceedings, the organisations noted, but the change has permitted their return to Tocoa, creating risk for the victims and for other defenders in the area. They said the Honduran justice system appears to be reproducing patterns of impunity seen in other cases of murdered defenders in the country, despite close attention to the case from international bodies including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
That commission granted precautionary measures, registered as MC 137-2023, to López’s family, to the Municipal Committee in Defence of the Common and Public Goods of Tocoa, and to the committee’s legal team. Honduras has yet to meet its obligation to guarantee their safety, the organisations said, calling on authorities to protect them immediately, to investigate the judge’s decisions and the conduct of the judiciary, and on prosecutors to pursue all suspected masterminds of the killing.
This report was produced by the HuMedia newsroom.
