TOCOA — Honduran authorities arrested former Tocoa mayor Adan Funez at his home on Tuesday on suspicion of masterminding the 2024 killing of environmental activist Juan Lopez. Funez was detained alongside two other men, Hector Eduardo Méndez and Juan Angel Ramos Gallegos, in connection with the assassination.

Prosecutors accused the three of criminal association to the detriment of fundamental rights. Their trial is set to begin in June 2026, more than a year after the assassination.

"These three individuals are believed to be the intellectual authors of the environmentalist Juan Lopez's death," Public Prosecutor's Office spokesperson Yuri Mora said. Mora's office identified Funez as the primary suspect in the plot.

Lopez was an anticorruption activist who led a community effort against an iron oxide mining project in Colon, in northwestern Honduras. Funez had supported the project and had been a power-broker in the region's decades-long agrarian conflict. In September 2024, Lopez called on Funez to step down over a corruption scandal. Days later, a masked gunman shot Lopez six times in the chest and once in the head.

The killing prompted demands for justice from Pope Francis, the United Nations and the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden at the time. It recalled global outcry over the 2016 murder of Honduran environmentalist Berta Caceres.

Funez was a close ally of former president Xiomara Castro, whose term ended in 2026. In Tocoa, eight environmental activists were imprisoned for more than two years in a separate case. According to Global Witness, Latin America was the most deadly region in the world for environmentalists, with the organization documenting 117 killings of environmental and land defenders across the region in 2024, representing 82 percent of the global total.

"We've been calling for justice for so long. And we need the masterminds behind this to be caught and punished." said Dalila Santiago, a leader in Lopez's movement.