HomeNewsBriefHonduras Court Blocks Pardon of Inmate 'Hero' Who Saved Hundreds from Prison Fire
BRIEF

Honduras Court Blocks Pardon of Inmate 'Hero' Who Saved Hundreds from Prison Fire

HONDURAS / 24 FEB 2012 BY ELYSSA PACHICO EN

Honduras' Supreme Court ruled that an inmate who saved hundreds of people from the Comayagua prison fire cannot be granted early release, even though the president promised to pardon him.

Marco Antonio Bonilla may have saved as many as 250 inmates from the fire when he stayed behind to unlock the prison cells, he told the Associated Press. The Valentine's Day fire killed 360 inmates, and shone a spotlight on the grisly conditions in Honduras' prison system. While prison guards where panicking,·Bonilla·grabbed a set of keys to open locks, and used a bench to smash down doors and save prisoners from the flames, according to a report in the Guardian.

On Tuesday President Porfirio Lobo said that he would pardon Bonilla, for taking "incredible risks to try and save lives."

But a Supreme Court spokesperson said that under the Honduran penal code, Bonilla cannot be pardoned or granted early release because he was convicted of serious crimes, including a murder charge in 1997 and another in 2006. He was also convicted of robbery that year. He was sentenced to 32 years in prison and has served slightly over half.

Fifty-year-old Bonilla, who worked as a nurse in the jail, told El Heraldo, "If they want to let me go free, let them, I've already decided to pay my time."

"It's better not to have illusions," he added.

InSight Crime Analysis

Bonilla could still see a pardon if Congress changes the constitution and penal code, which would allow inmates convicted of serious crimes to receive pardons from the president.

According to El Heraldo, the executive branch received 358 requests for a pardon last year. But pardons and conditional liberty are rarely granted. Currently there are some 540 inmates in Honduras petitioning for an early release, El Heraldo reports.

As the Guardian points out, Bonilla has became a hero for Hondurans because so few other actors involved in the tragedy -- prison guards, firefighters, and authorities responsible for identifying the bodies -- demonstrated competence. Part of the legal issue seems to be whether President Lobo can still grant Bonilla a pardon, even if the Supreme Court rules against it.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

ELITES AND CRIME / 1 NOV 2022

Honduras has freed dozens of individuals tied to organized crime a year after reforming its money laundering law.

ECUADOR / 7 OCT 2022

Any chance of peace between warring gangs in Ecuador appears to be defunct after another two massacres.

COLOMBIA / 21 MAR 2022

A top Colombian drug trafficker walked out of a maximum-security prison in Bogotá without ever being challenged, exposing deep-seated corruption…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…