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- Sep 30, 2011
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A judge in Guatemala has accepted a guilty plea by the former head of security at Central America’s largest nickel mine who was on trial for killing an Indigenous leader, in a rare conviction over human rights violations allegedly linked to Canadian-owned mining companies in the region.
Mynor Padilla was found guilty on Wednesday of homicide for the 2009 fatal shooting of Adolfo Ich, a Maya Q’eqchi’ teacher and community leader who opposed the Fenix mine outside the town of El Estor.
“We have spent a long time seeking justice,” Angélica Choc, Ich’s widow, told the Guardian outside the courthouse, in Puerto Barrios, a port city 185 miles east of Guatemala City, following the ruling.
“It is not going to bring my husband back, but I feel satisfied.”
Transnational mining corporations, most of them Canadian, their personnel, and state security forces have been accused by human rights groups of a litany of abuses in Central America, including the killings of mine opponents.
www.theguardian.com
It just took 11 years.
Mynor Padilla was found guilty on Wednesday of homicide for the 2009 fatal shooting of Adolfo Ich, a Maya Q’eqchi’ teacher and community leader who opposed the Fenix mine outside the town of El Estor.
“We have spent a long time seeking justice,” Angélica Choc, Ich’s widow, told the Guardian outside the courthouse, in Puerto Barrios, a port city 185 miles east of Guatemala City, following the ruling.
“It is not going to bring my husband back, but I feel satisfied.”
Transnational mining corporations, most of them Canadian, their personnel, and state security forces have been accused by human rights groups of a litany of abuses in Central America, including the killings of mine opponents.
Guatemala mine's ex-security chief convicted of Indigenous leader's murder
Mynor Padilla pleaded guilty over death of Adolfo Ich, a Maya Q’eqchi’ teacher who opposed nickel mine in El Estor, in 2009
www.theguardian.com
It just took 11 years.
