She hired a lawyer to help dispute the charges that her son, Octavio Ruiz, 21, had assisted gang members in a robbery. She stormed into the local prosecutor’s office to demand his release. She put up posters — “A mother needs your help,” she wrote — asking witnesses to speak out. Ms. Castro hoped that her son might soon get a trial, but he never did. Mr. Ruiz was one of at least 350 people killed on Tuesday night as a fire tore through the Comayagua national prison, one of the deadliest disasters in Honduran history. In some parts of Latin America, prisoners like Mr. Ruiz are held on suspicion of aiding drug cartels and gangs and told to wait for their chance at justice. But with corruption plaguing many judicial systems and prosecutors overwhelmed with drug cases, many who are accused of crimes spend far longer than they expect in legal limbo, leaving prisons like Comayagua’s grossly overcrowded. While Mr. Ruiz was held for months, human rights groups say others are sometimes imprisoned for more than a year, and many are not formally charged while they wait. Across Honduras, only 53 percent of prisoners have been convicted, according to government statistics released in September. In the Comayagua prison, fewer than half, 397 of 858 inmates, had been. Honduran families on Thursday deplored what they called a double injustice: not only had their parents or cousins or children been killed in a horrific disaster, but they had also been denied a chance to vindicate themselves. “How can we go on treating human beings like this?” asked Ms. Castro, standing outside the gates of the Comayagua prison. “Where is the sense of humanity?” A day after Honduran officials blamed a prisoner’s setting fire to his mattress for the conflagration, the authorities backtracked somewhat, saying that it was still the most likely explanation but that investigators had not ruled out the possibility of an electrical problem. Specialists from Chile and the United States arrived to help investigate, and an initial report on the cause is expected next week. Some Hondurans, however, were skeptical of the official explanation and criticized the government’s response to the fire amid reports that many prison officials were absent when it began. Some critics called for privatizing the country’s penitentiaries. “I won’t believe anything until they examine every corner in that prison,” said Martha Martínez, 36, whose cousin was injured in the blaze. Many other questions remained on Thursday, including why keys could not be found to free many of the prisoners. Fidel Tejeda, one of the prison guards, told local reporters on Thursday that only one guard held the proper set of keys to open prisoner cells. There were also complaints about rescuers’ not having entered the prison for 40 minutes. Jaime Silva, the Comayagua fire chief, said in an interview that prison officials initially stopped firefighters from entering the complex, citing security protocol. “They have rules, and they were insistent that we follow them,” Mr. Silva said. The country’s human rights commissioner, Ana Pineda, said the government could face a lawsuit from families claiming that human rights had been violated. “The state is in the position of guaranteeing safety in its prisons,” Ms. Pineda said. “The state must take responsibility for its actions.” Welsy Vásquez, a lawmaker from San Pedro Sula who visited the Comayagua prison on Thursday, said Honduran prisons were “ticking time bombs” because of overcrowding. She said the National Congress should immediately devote funds to prison renovations and that prosecutors should be given more resources to investigate cases. But Ms. Vásquez said she was skeptical that changes could be accomplished. “The cancer of Honduras is corruption,” she said. “If there are projects that benefit the people but not the criminals, they will not get done.” Many prisons in Honduras were constructed decades ago and have been neglected, left crumbling, with poor sanitation and electrical problems. At the same time, the burdens on the penal system have grown as Honduras has become a haven of criminal activity in recent years. Drug traffickers have flooded the country, seeking shelter from aggressive antiviolence campaigns in Mexico and Colombia. As crime has risen, Central American leaders have faced enormous pressure to show signs of progress in the battle against drug cartels. Arrests have risen, and analysts expect prisons to grow even more unruly as a result. Honduras has some of the strictest antigang laws in the region, which some say have contributed to the overcrowding crisis. A 2003 law allows officials to make arrests if a person shows signs of belonging to a gang, like a tattoo. A spokesman for the government said that officials were doing the best they could with limited resources, and that the ability to make quick arrests, especially of suspected gang members, was an important tool in reducing violence. But human rights watchdogs criticized the government’s methods and the burden they placed on the justice system. “This is a grave, unjust problem that deserves to be resolved,” said Marcia Aguiluz, a lawyer for the Center for Justice and International Law. “These are not new themes for Honduras or Latin America.” Families gathered at a morgue in Tegucigalpa on Thursday, scanning photos in newspapers for any sign of their relatives. By late afternoon, only a handful of bodies had been identified; the rest were so burned that they required dental and DNA tests.
Karla Zabludovsky contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 16, 2012
An earlier version of this article contained a photo credit in which the photographer’s given name was misspelled. He is Esteban Felix, not Estbean.
View the original article here
