Former Minister Accused of Alleged Corruption Returns to Honduras

Tegucigalpa, 18 Mar Former Honduran Minister of the Presidency Enrique Flores Lanza, accused of alleged corruption offences, returned to his country on Friday after seven years of exile in Nicaragua. Flores Lanza was Minister of the Presidency during the government presided over by Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), who was overthrown on June 28, 2009 when promoting a popular consultation ignoring legal impediments. The former minister was charged in 2014 for the crimes of embezzlement and abuse of authority, associated with the theft of money from the vaults of the Central Bank of Honduras, in 2009, which, according to press versions, would then be “destined to reinforce the Presidential Honor Guard.” It was also reported that at least ten million lempiras ($400,000 at the current exchange rate), taken out by wheelbarrow from the Central Bank of Honduras, went to finance the so-called “Fourth Ballot Box”, promoted by former President Zelaya, whose wife, Xiomara Castro, leader of the Freedom and Refoundation Party (Free, left), is now the president of the Central American country. Flores Lanza repeatedly reiterated that he did not keep any money and that the accusations of the Public Prosecutor's Office were false. In addition to explaining which institutions the resources were allocated to. At the time, he also stated that the accusations against him were part of a political persecution against several former government officials presided over by Manuel Zelaya. With the new administration presided over by Xiomara Castro, Flores Lanza benefited from an amnesty approved by the Honduran Parliament. The former minister, a renowned lawyer in his country, received five letters of liberty from the Honduran justice system, the last one on the 16th, which states that “he has no pending trial, nor has he been convicted” in the court that heard the case “for any crime and is therefore in full enjoyment of his civil rights”. Upon his arrival overland in Honduras, relatives, former President Manuel Zelaya, officials of the current Government and friends, among others, went out to welcome him. On the eve, before returning to his country, Flores Lanza said on social networks that “It was 13 years of a tenacious persecution in which lies became true, we will finally be able to return to the homeland”. Flores Lanza entered the country through Las Manos, a customs border point between Honduras and Nicaragua.