Honduran senior official arrested in corruption case

Congress Vice-President Lena Gutierrez is accused of defrauding the country’s health ministry and falsifying documents.

Honduras protests

A Honduran judge has ordered Congress Vice-president Lena Gutierrez, along with her father and two siblings, be placed under house arrest due to corruption allegations, a court spokesman said on Saturday.

Gutierrez, from the governing National Party, and her family members are accused of defrauding the country’s health ministry and falsifying documents.

Honduras issued an arrest warrant for Gutierrez on Tuesday, and she appeared in court on Friday.

She and her family have denied the charges, and say that in 2009, they sold a pharmaceutical company which is accused of selling overpriced and adulterated medicine to the health ministry.

The case comes amidst weeks of protests seeking the resignation of President Juan Orlando Hernandez over a $200 million corruption scandal at the Honduran Institute of Social Security.

Tens of thousands Hondurans poured onto the streets of the capital Tegucigalpa on Friday to demand the resignation of Hernandez in the biggest demonstration yet against the country’s leader over allegations of corruption.

An estimated 60,000 demonstrators, many of them holding torches, took part in the noisy protest that converged on the presidential palace, the sixth Friday evening march in a row.

Hernandez has admitted his 2013 presidential campaign took some $150,000 from firms linked to the scandal, but said that he and his party did not know where the money was from.

Source: News Agencies