Honduras: Former Finance Minister Tabora is Captured

On Wednesday, former Finance Minister Rocio Tabora was apprehended at the the Guasaule border crossing with Nicaragua.

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Tabora, who served as the Finance Minister during the second term of President Juan Orlando Hernandez (2018-2022), is facing charges of corruption in the purchase of seven mobile hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The former minister, against whom a national and international arrest warrant had been issued, will be presented today before the Public Ministry.

For the same purchase of the seven mobile hospitals, valued at US$47.5 million, which did not meet the required conditions for their intended use, there is also an arrest warrant for former Health Minister Alba Consuelo Flores. The charges against the two former ministers were filed last Thursday by the Public Ministry, as reported by the new Attorney General, Johel Zelaya.

The prosecutor also noted that former Deputy Finance Minister Roxana Rodriguez, like Tabora and Flores, was considered a "fugitive from justice," and their "principle of innocence and due process" would be respected.

The former officials are accused of fraud in the irregular purchase of seven mobile hospitals from a Turkish company for US$47.5 million to address the COVID-19 pandemic that affected Honduras between 2020 and 2022, resulting in over 10,000 deaths.

The hospitals were purchased between March and April 2020 through the state-owned Strategic Investment of Honduras (Invest-H), with Guatemalan Axel Gamaliel Lopez, legal representative of HospitalMoviles.com and ELMED Medical Systems INC.

Gamaliel Lopez has been under an international red alert arrest warrant since April 2021 and is accused of two fraud offenses as an accomplice. In the same case, former Invest-H director Marco Bogran was sentenced in 2022 to 10 years and 11 months in prison.