28/06/2022

Daughter of murdered Honduran human rights activist files criminal complaint against Dutch Development Bank FMO

AMSTERDAM, 28 June 2022 - Bertha Zúniga Cáceres today filed a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office, against the Dutch development bank FMO. The daughter of the Goldman Environmental Prize Winner Berta Cáceres Flores, who was murdered in March 2016, requests the Public Prosecutor to launch a criminal investigation into the complicity of FMO and its executives in violence, corruption, misappropriation of funds and money laundering in the context of the development of the Agua Zarca dam in Honduras.

Murder of Berta Cáceres and role of state bank FMO

Between February 2014 and March 2016, the Dutch state bank FMO lent millions to a Honduran construction company, whose former CEO, David Castillo, was sentenced to 22 years in prison in June 2022 for his role in the murder of human rights activist Berta Cáceres. She opposed the construction of a hydroelectric plant on indigenous land, for which the funding was intended. Cáceres Flores' daughter, Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, is in the Netherlands this week to file a criminal complaint against FMO. She claims that FMO continued to financially support the construction company DESA despite repeated warnings from outside and that a significant part of the development funding for the project was siphoned off to third parties. Zúniga Cáceres is represented in the Netherlands by law firm Global Justice Association (GJA) in Amsterdam.

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