Europa Press, AP and AFP

The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, September 1, 2024, p. 19

Tegucigalpa. Honduran Defense Minister José Manuel Zelaya resigned yesterday after his father, Parliamentary Secretary Carlos Zelaya, did the same, after admitting that he had a meeting with several drug traffickers who offered him money for his campaign in 2013. The mission of the Free and Resistance Party is above the exercise of a public office, therefore, and so that the investigation can be carried out with complete freedom, I have submitted my resignation as head of Defense, to President Xiomara Castro.declared, who is also the president’s nephew, on his X account.

For his part, Carlos Zelaya (now former Secretary of Congress and brother of former President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, overthrown in a coup d’état in 2009) appeared before the Attorney General’s Office to give his statement regarding an investigation into his alleged links to drug trafficking.

11 years ago I was invited to participate in a meeting attended by a group of businessmen who wanted to make a contribution to the campaignthe legislator told reporters upon leaving the Public Ministry office. I am convinced that this meeting was recorded; I fell into a trap and I take responsibility. There is a video.

The Zelaya family

Carlonas he is known, explained that at that meeting there were “Mr. Cachiro, one of the leaders of the drug trafficking organization The Cachiros; the mayor of Tocoa, Adán Fúnez; Carlos Muñoz and Ramón Matta,” but said he was unaware that there were people at the event linked to the illegal drug trade and other crimes.

Carlos Muñoz was a substitute deputy in Congress and Ramón Matta is a businessman, son of Ramón Matta Ballesteros, sentenced 36 years ago to 12 life sentences in the United States for his involvement in the murder of Enrique Camarena, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

At the time of this edition, the president did not comment on the resignations, instead, former president Zelaya announced in X that he called for a meeting today emergency session of his party.