Keyla Martínez
Caso Keyla Martínez

The case of Keyla Martínez represents a challenge for Honduran justice, with indications of a controversial verdict for the alleged perpetrators. The potential involvement of security agents in this tragic event raises serious doubts about the integrity of the judicial system.

By Lourdes Ramírez

Journalist FORO HUMANOS 

Almost three years after Keyla Martínez’s crime, everything indicates that the Honduran justice system will hand down a sentence that favors the alleged culprits. This in a country where 341 violent deaths of women were recorded from January to October 31, 2023.,with the aggravating factor that in this case in question, there would be the participation of security agents.

 At 26 years old, Keyla Patricia Martínez Rodríguez was an outstanding student studying Nursing at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH). Until the last day of her life, she talked via video calls with her mother, Norma Rodríguez, a resident in Spain, about her plans for the future: working, having a family, supporting each other.

Honduras
Keyla Martínez, murdered in a police cell.

 “Only the plans were made, because these people truncated his dream, broke his wings. They also ruined our lives as a family. Now our family is no longer the same. When we go to Honduras we are afraid, we have to hide. If we go to La Esperanza we have to hide,” says Doña Norma.

 A crime that could have been avoided

 On the night of February 6, 2021, Keyla and her supposed friend, Dr. Edgar José Velásquez Orellana, were arrested for the “crime” of walking on the street during a curfew period due to the covid-19 pandemic. A police patrol took them to the Departmental Police Unit #10 of La Esperanza, department of Intibucá, 182 kilometers west of Tegucigalpa.

 When they took her to the police headquarters, they passed in front of Keyla’s house, since the arrest took place just two blocks away. The issue could have been settled by dropping her off at her place of residence, but the agents decided that the “crime” was too serious, they had to teach her a lesson and she had to go to the police barracks.

 “You feel so helpless knowing that your daughter is being detained two blocks from your house. Why didn’t they go and drop her off at home? When she was taken to the cell at the police station, they passed in front of the house. Why didn’t they leave her there? «, is the question that Doña Norma asks herself daily.

Norma Rodríguez, madre de Keyla Martínez. Foto: Contracorriente Honduras.

 “They already had every intention of harming my daughter, it is very clear. When they film the video, there is one of them who says: ‘what a beauty’, when my daughter is trying to console or control the doctor, because he is the one who is hysterical,» she states, in relation to Mr. Velásquez Orellana.

Tragic outcome for Keyla Martinez

 At around 2:30 in the morning on February 7, the police took her to the Enrique Aguilar Cerrato Hospital in La Esperanza, where they reported that they found her in the cell trying to take her own life by hanging herself with a sweater. The doctor who treated her confirmed that when she was taken she was already dead.

 The police authorities tried to prevent an autopsy and an investigation, but by then the crime had already generated indignation among the residents, who took to the streets of La Esperanza to protest. The Ministry of Security, in an attempt to protect and provide impunity to its agents, transferred them to Tegucigalpa that same day. Likewise, they sent contingents of riot police to suppress the demonstrations.

 Due to popular pressure, the autopsy was performed, which determined howcause of death “asphyxia due to obstruction of respiratory orifices”. That is, a homicidal hand covered his nose, mouth and throat.

The current Deputy Minister of Security and former Director of Forensic Medicine, Dr. Semma Julissa Villanueva, maintains that “the manner of death from a medical-legal point of view is homicidal.” She confirmed having seen autopsy photographs and emphasizes that “no one in custody dies with clear signs of mechanical asphyxiation due to suffocation.”

protestas
Protests in Honduras demanding justice for Keyla

Given the evidence, on February 11 and 12, 2021, 13 agents who were at the police station on the night of the crime were summoned to Forensic Medicine in Tegucigalpa to perform evaluations of their mental health, fluids, and pubic hair.

 The cell was also searched and evidence was collected, including a video showing police officer Jarol Rolando Perdomo Sarmiento entering Keyla’s cell, where he remained for five minutes. He then leaves and remains outside, in a suspicious manner, without returning to his position as assistant to the commander of the police station and in charge of the keys to the cellars and custody of the detainees.

 Given the evident police involvement in the homicide, organizations such as International AmnestyThey demanded that the investigation be used Minnesota Protocol Concerning the Investigation of Potentially Unlawful Deaths.This defines a potentially unlawful death where «there is a reasonable possibility that it was caused by a violation of human rights, such as extrajudicial, arbitrary or summary execution, enforced disappearance or torture.»

 In addition, it proposes that the investigations aim to determine the cause, circumstances and those responsible for the death, and allow the victims and their families to obtain justice and reparation. In the end, all demands from Honduran civil society organizations and international entities were rejected.

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