Former Honduran Security Minister Alfredo Landaverde, an outspoken critic of police corruption and the influence of organized crime on politics, has been gunned down in Tegucigalpa.
According to La Tribuna, Landavere was driving through the capital city on Wednesday with his wife and one other passenger when gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on their vehicle. The former head of the Honduran Anti-Narcotics Commission died at the scene, while the other two sustained serious injuries.
Landaverde held a reputation as a tireless activist against corruption, and was one of the best-known voices calling on the government to clean up the country’s notoriously dirty police forces. When it was revealed that police had a role in the October 22 murder of two university students, Landaverde cited the incident as proof of criminal activity within the institution.
He was also at the head of efforts to get the Lobo administration to conduct a thorough review of police inventory when it came out that police officials claimed to have lose thousands of confiscated weapons, many of which ended up on the black market.
In addition to his campaign against police, Landaverde was known as a staunch opponent of corruption within the government. When interviewed by McClatchy in April, he told the news company that organized crime had extensive influence over the Honduran Congress, claiming that 16 current lawmakers have links to drug cartels, making up more than a 10th of the institution.
Landaverde’s death comes a day after a Honduran journalist,·Luz Marina Paz Villalobos, was gunned down in similar circumstances in Tegucigalpa, when gunmen on motorbikes pulled up alongside her car.