Speaker 1: It's day in the trial of David Castillo, the CEO
Speaker 1: is accused of planning the murder of environmental activists Berta Cassaris.
Speaker 1: On this day, the judge calls a witness for the
Speaker 1: prosecution to the stand. Daniel Atala is part of the
Speaker 1: Atala Zabla family. They sunk millions of dollars into David
Speaker 1: Castillo's company Dessa. For Berta's family and her supporters, Atala
Speaker 1: is a very important witness. He wasn't just an investor Indessa.
Speaker 1: He was also the CFO, the man who kept track
Speaker 1: of the company's money. He was in regular contact with
Speaker 1: David before and after the murder. Even more important for
Speaker 1: the prosecution the Atala Zabla family is David's connection to
Speaker 1: the powers that run Honduras. For them, just getting Danniel
Speaker 1: Atala on the stand carries a lot of symbolic weight.
Speaker 1: Bear To herself often complained that wealthy and politically connected
Speaker 1: business leaders are untouchable by the Honduran justice system. She
Speaker 1: and her backers have always alleged that a handful of
Speaker 1: rich families, the Atala Zablas among them, dominate the country's
Speaker 1: power structures. They contend that these families use their influence
Speaker 1: to buy protection from the government, from police and from judges.
Speaker 1: The notion that the Atala Zabla family might somehow be
Speaker 1: able to influence the outcome of this case has clung
Speaker 1: to it from the moment David Castillo was arrested as
Speaker 1: a suspect. It's an idea that the Atala Zablas dismiss
Speaker 1: as ridiculous and paranoid, not not the wealthiest family in
Speaker 1: the country. By by farm we have, you know, a
Speaker 1: strong and us win group. But it's we. We don't
Speaker 1: have the loving capacity, we don't have the fund capacity.
Speaker 1: We don't have the funding capacity. That's Daniel Atala when
Speaker 1: we spoke to him last year. It's a extremely limited
Speaker 1: and we and the investment that we have lost, as
Speaker 1: you know, made of big dent in in our in
Speaker 1: our finances. There are two kinds of prosecutors in this case,
Speaker 1: the state prosecutors and the private prosecutors who represent Berta's family.
Speaker 1: The private prosecutors big fear is that no matter how
Speaker 1: much evidence they present in court, David Castillo will still
Speaker 1: get off. That the Itala Zablas somehow will be able
Speaker 1: to shield David and themselves from punishment. So for them
Speaker 1: forcing a member of the Itala Zabla family to be
Speaker 1: grilled in the witness box is a test of the
Speaker 1: court's integrity and independence. The defense has repeatedly appealed to
Speaker 1: the court to not make Daniel Latala testify, So this
Speaker 1: is a very big moment in the trial. But when
Speaker 1: Daniel Latala's name is called, he's not in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: The witness box is empty. To Bart's family, this is
Speaker 1: an ominous sign. A moment that seemed like a victory
Speaker 1: becomes a reminder that there are no guarantees in the
Speaker 1: trial of David Castillo. In our final episode will take
Speaker 1: you all the way to the end of this trial,
Speaker 1: the judges will decide David Castillo's faith and not guilty.
Speaker 1: Verdict would allow him to reclaim a life that he
Speaker 1: says has been stolen from him. For Bart's family, a
Speaker 1: conviction would prove that justice in Honduras, five long years
Speaker 1: after they began searching for it, can still be found.
Speaker 1: I'm monte Reel and this is blood River. Danielle Atala
Speaker 1: is not in the courtroom when it comes time for
Speaker 1: him to testify. His image pops up on a video screen.
Speaker 1: That's the judge asking if he can hear her. Okay,
Speaker 1: other witnesses in Europe, in Mexico, in the United States
Speaker 1: have testified remotely, but the prosecutors wanted to question a
Speaker 1: Tala face to face. So the judge asks, where are
Speaker 1: you when those things didn't He's into Goosey, Galpa, just
Speaker 1: minutes away from this courtroom, So why didn't he come in?
Speaker 1: And when he says he didn't want to unnecessarily expose
Speaker 1: himself to COVID nineteen, he says his wife and his
Speaker 1: mother suffer from respiratory problems. He says he stayed home
Speaker 1: for them. But there are only a handful of people
Speaker 1: in the courtroom. Witnesses keep their distance from them. Everyone's
Speaker 1: wearing masks. The judge orders him to come into court
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. This seems like a resounding symbolic
Speaker 1: victory for the private prosecutors, and a few hours later
Speaker 1: he's there in the witness box, getting a microphone clip
Speaker 1: to his shirt, getting sworn in, and almost immediately he
Speaker 1: addresses the much. He tells the judge that, on the
Speaker 1: advice of his lawyers, he's decided not to testify. He
Speaker 1: informs the judge that he Danielle is himself under investigation
Speaker 1: for this murder. That being the case, he can't be
Speaker 1: forced to talk about it in court. The mood immediately
Speaker 1: changes in the room, particularly among the team of private prosecutors.
Speaker 1: They don't seem ready for this revelation. They huddled together,
Speaker 1: whispering among themselves at their tables. They say they're not
Speaker 1: aware that an official investigation of Danielle has been opened.
Speaker 1: The judge says she isn't either, but the public prosecutors
Speaker 1: the state's attorneys, say yes, it's true, Danielle is being investigated,
Speaker 1: and because of that, it's his constitutional right to remain silent.
Speaker 1: The private prosecutors say, if he's ever been interrogated about
Speaker 1: this crime, it's news to them. They argue that to
Speaker 1: let him off the hook would be a violation, an
Speaker 1: abuse of the rights of the victims. It's an awkward situation.
Speaker 1: Both sets of prosecutors, the state and the private teams,
Speaker 1: are supposed to be working toward a common goal, a conviction,
Speaker 1: But even from the very first days after the murder,
Speaker 1: Bart's family has occasionally been critical of the state's handling
Speaker 1: of the investigation, and now the private prosecutors seem to
Speaker 1: be arguing with the public prosecutors. This goes on for
Speaker 1: about a half an hour, and finally the judge delivers
Speaker 1: the decision. The court won't force him to testify. The
Speaker 1: judge just have sided with the defense and the public prosecutors.
Speaker 1: Danielle A Tala is free to go. Danielle unclips the
Speaker 1: microphone from his shirt, steps out of the witness box,
Speaker 1: and walks out of the courtroom. For those watching the trial,
Speaker 1: it's hard to make sense of what just happened. Joseph
Speaker 1: Barra is a law professor at U c l A
Speaker 1: who's monitoring the trial for numerous human rights organizations. He says,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of ways of looking at Atala's
Speaker 1: abrupt exit. It did kind of lead to some suspicions.
Speaker 1: I guess in the worst view or more cynical view,
Speaker 1: was there some kind of confabulation and to protect him
Speaker 1: by saying giving him that argument and said, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: under investigation, so you can avoid this testimony. This raises
Speaker 1: the possibility that the state prosecutors actually might be protecting Atala,
Speaker 1: and if that's true, they're undermining the case against David.
Speaker 1: On social media, Some of Berta's backers point out that
Speaker 1: the government has known about the connections between David and
Speaker 1: Danielle Atala, since they wonder why the state waited until
Speaker 1: now to reveal that Atala is under investigation. Was it
Speaker 1: only to protect him from testifying, But Barris says there's
Speaker 1: another way of looking at this. Maybe Danielle Atala isn't
Speaker 1: being protected by the state. Maybe he's being pursued more
Speaker 1: aggressively than anyone suspected. Now, I guess the positive is
Speaker 1: that if he is under investigation, there's potential so that
Speaker 1: they could take the information that the family has been
Speaker 1: pointing at for a long time now that there is
Speaker 1: a network and a structure that was involved in this
Speaker 1: crime that goes beyond the vie Castillo. After daniel Atala
Speaker 1: has dismissed, the private prosecutors call several other witnesses. Their
Speaker 1: testimony takes weeks, and then it's finally the defense's turn.
Speaker 1: Their strategy is pretty straightforward. David has been framed. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was malice or maybe just in competence. Either way,
Speaker 1: his lawyers argue that the police botched everything. Here's one
Speaker 1: illustration that they highlight in court. It has to do
Speaker 1: with Mariano Diaz. Diaz, remember, was a middleman. He's already
Speaker 1: been convicted for helping to arrange the logistics of Bart's murder.
Speaker 1: The day of his arrest, Diaz gave a statement to
Speaker 1: the police. He said that Dess's former head of security
Speaker 1: had offered him about twenty thou dollars to help plan
Speaker 1: the murder, and DS says the money came from Dess's manager.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors say he was referring to David. The statement was
Speaker 1: read in court, but Diaz never actually signed it and
Speaker 1: it wasn't dated. The defense attorneys say this renders the
Speaker 1: statement worthless. The defense says another example of police incompetence
Speaker 1: centers on Brenda Barajona. She's the telephone expert who extracted
Speaker 1: most of the text, messages and calls that implicated David.
Speaker 1: His lawyers have questioned her qualifications, her training, her technological expertise,
Speaker 1: and they've done this inside and outside of the courtroom.
Speaker 1: They say they've uncovered one and thirty errors of fact
Speaker 1: in her analysis. They say she quote hid messages that
Speaker 1: proved David and Verta were friends. They say she ignored
Speaker 1: messages suggesting other groups not Dessa also clashed with Berta,
Speaker 1: and Barahona didn't investigate them. That's from a video clip
Speaker 1: disparaging Barahona's work. David's team distributed it via social media.
Speaker 1: The defense team says their own experts dugout text that
Speaker 1: Barrajona ignored, and one of them is related to a
Speaker 1: key exchange between David and Douglas Bustillo. It's an exchange
Speaker 1: we've talked about several times in this series. The Mission
Speaker 1: Aborted texts. Bustillo, if you recalled, was the former head
Speaker 1: of security for Dessa at the Damn site. Barajona says
Speaker 1: he acted as the point man between David and the
Speaker 1: lower level hit men who carried out the killing. Remember
Speaker 1: that Barrijonah suggests that David and Boustillo originally planned the
Speaker 1: murder for February, about a month before Berta was actually killed.
Speaker 1: She says that plan fell through because Barta's family was
Speaker 1: with her when the hitman went to her house, and
Speaker 1: this was when Boustillo and David exchanged messages referring to
Speaker 1: a Mission Aborted. Before the trial, David had explained to
Speaker 1: me that bar Ijona completely misinterpreted this text. David says,
Speaker 1: when Boustillo messaged him in early February saying mission aborted.
Speaker 1: He was talking about a trip he'd planned to take
Speaker 1: to Choluteca. That's a town where Dessa was developing a
Speaker 1: solar project. David says he wanted Bostio to check it
Speaker 1: out because they'd been having problems with local gangs near
Speaker 1: the solar project. He couldn't not travel to the part
Speaker 1: that a specific date he was going to travel at
Speaker 1: a later date. David's team argues that they know of
Speaker 1: texts that specifically referenced this aborted trip to cho Luteca,
Speaker 1: and in court they asked an expert to read one
Speaker 1: such exchange that was extracted from Bustillo's phone. In this
Speaker 1: chat string, Bustillo references a job that he's doing. He's
Speaker 1: asked where it's located, and his response is read aloud
Speaker 1: in court that he had. He answers that it's at
Speaker 1: an energy plant in the South. He says, Castillo called
Speaker 1: me yesterday. In another message ten days later, Bustillo is
Speaker 1: asked where he's at there it is Luca. However, the
Speaker 1: prosecutors seem ready for this. They point out the dates
Speaker 1: of those texts. March eight, in March eighteenth. Berta was
Speaker 1: killed on March three, so the references to this trip
Speaker 1: to Choluteca come after Berta's murder, after police began investigating
Speaker 1: the crime, and after members of Barta's family urged the
Speaker 1: police to investigate Dessa as a suspect. The prosecutors suggest
Speaker 1: this is just another example of David's deception, that these
Speaker 1: after the fact references to Choluteca our attempts to establish
Speaker 1: an alibi, that he was just trying to cover his tracks.
Speaker 1: The defense isn't done trying to use text messages to
Speaker 1: undermine the prosecution's case. One exchange they highlight is between
Speaker 1: Berta and someone identified as Heronimo. The defense says Heronimo
Speaker 1: is Oreleano Molina, an ex boyfriend of Berta's. The exchange
Speaker 1: was from June three, less than a year before the murder.
Speaker 1: It's extremely cryptic, but in it, Berta and Areliano discuss
Speaker 1: a piece of land a. Reliano suggests to her the
Speaker 1: land might be used to quote let a bird land
Speaker 1: bear to respond if there's no impact in the process.
Speaker 1: He replies, there could be an impact, you can't be sure.
Speaker 1: A bit later, bert To send him another message she
Speaker 1: writes one time, no more. David's defense leaves the meaning
Speaker 1: of this open to interpretation. There's no other evidence presented
Speaker 1: to elaborate on it, but their suggestion is clear to
Speaker 1: the court that Berta was involved in something shady. On Twitter,
Speaker 1: an account dedicated to David's defense suggests that the bird
Speaker 1: was an airplane. The Twitter post states that the exchange
Speaker 1: quote alludes to narco trafficking and what could have been
Speaker 1: another line of investigation. Remember that this trial is being
Speaker 1: live streamed and that spectators are commenting in real time
Speaker 1: in the comments section next to the video feed. David's
Speaker 1: supporters pounce on this accusation. They suggest Berta was a
Speaker 1: drug dealer and that Brenda Barahona protected her by not
Speaker 1: revealing these text messages earlier. To Bert's supporters, this feels
Speaker 1: like an outrage, but it's one they say they've come
Speaker 1: to expect. Karen Spring is a Canadian activist in Honduras.
Speaker 1: She was a friend of Berta's and worked with her
Speaker 1: on several campaigns. She says this strategy of personal attack
Speaker 1: felt familiar to her. That's something that um they try,
Speaker 1: government or companies try. Wealthy companies, wealthy families try and
Speaker 1: do to sort of say these people are bad people,
Speaker 1: they're involved in drug trafficking, and therefore they get whatever
Speaker 1: comes to them. She says these smears are particularly common
Speaker 1: against women. It was obviously alarming, you know, because you
Speaker 1: if people are watching and they don't understand those themes
Speaker 1: and those sort of um patterns, then it's easy to
Speaker 1: fall into sort of question, well, maybe she was involved
Speaker 1: with some bad guys, or maybe she was involved in
Speaker 1: drug trafficking. But it's such a common pattern that it
Speaker 1: wasn't surprising to me at all. The private prosecutors have
Speaker 1: insisted that gender and sexism are integral parts of this case,
Speaker 1: and Berta's daughters Bertita, Isabel, and Laura routinely refer to
Speaker 1: their mother's murder as a femicide. They say there's a
Speaker 1: machismo embedded in the Honduran political, economic, and justice systems.
Speaker 1: Barretta's daughters say that mindset is at the root of
Speaker 1: the harassment, bear to endure it as an activist. They
Speaker 1: argue that it hasn't gone away, that Berta is still
Speaker 1: a victim of it right here in this trial. One
Speaker 1: of the final witnesses for the defense is a telephone
Speaker 1: expert who is hired by David's lawyers. He scoured Berta's
Speaker 1: phones and came up with additional messages and recordings that
Speaker 1: the prosecutors didn't include in the evidence they entered. Yet
Speaker 1: in the end, the prosecutors become interested in some of
Speaker 1: the messages he's extracted from her phone. They asked him
Speaker 1: to play one in the courtroom. A voice that's been
Speaker 1: silent throughout all these weeks of testimony rings out. It's
Speaker 1: Bear too. Thank you, colleagues. We are urgently denouncing that
Speaker 1: we are being harassed and illegally detained by employees of DESSA,
Speaker 1: the company Dessa of the Aguasarka Project Depreto Electric Sarca.
Speaker 1: The message was recorded about three months before her murder.
Speaker 1: On the day of the recording, her organization Copeine was
Speaker 1: holding a protest against Desasaguasarca Damn and the protesters ran
Speaker 1: into resistance. Bear To recorded this message to let other
Speaker 1: backers of her cause know what's going on. Those employees
Speaker 1: are being supported by the military police. They have a
Speaker 1: private security company, and they are blocking the Copenen buses
Speaker 1: and threatening to damage them. They're insulting and offending us,
Speaker 1: and these slurs are full of racism, of discrimination, and
Speaker 1: sexism in the understands offense. For those who Knubert to
Speaker 1: this moment is powerful to them. It's as if she's
Speaker 1: there in court testifying against David and his company. After
Speaker 1: nearly three months of testimony, it's time for the closing arguments.
Speaker 1: The state prosecutors lay out the bones of their case.
Speaker 1: They review the key text messages and witness statements, and
Speaker 1: they sketch a portrait of David as a killer, an
Speaker 1: executive driven by the simple desire to protect his interests
Speaker 1: and to undermine anyone who threatened them. The private prosecutors
Speaker 1: representing the victims try to put the case ace in
Speaker 1: a broader context. They say, David needs to be in prison,
Speaker 1: but this trial is bigger than him, and it's bigger
Speaker 1: than bear to The private prosecutors tell the judges they
Speaker 1: have a historic opportunity to break a cycle of impunity
Speaker 1: for the powerful and Honduras. They point out that David
Speaker 1: comes from a life of privilege and that he doesn't
Speaker 1: fit the stereotype of a cold blooded killer. But the
Speaker 1: prosecutors warn that appearances can deceive. To meet David Castillo
Speaker 1: judging by his appearance, his background, nobody would think he's
Speaker 1: capable of committing a crime like this one because he
Speaker 1: doesn't have the appearance of a classic criminal. But this
Speaker 1: is the profile, these behaviors at this level that have
Speaker 1: shaped the history of this country. It's from these positions
Speaker 1: of power, and not just through this act, but many acts,
Speaker 1: that they've destroyed the social fabric, that they've destroyed the
Speaker 1: institutions of this country. It is this observation that David
Speaker 1: wasn't a typical murder suspect resonated with me. I'd met David,
Speaker 1: He'd looked me in the eye, repeatedly insisting that he
Speaker 1: was innocent. That he too, mourned Bear to his death.
Speaker 1: He said, he admired her. Berta was my friend. It
Speaker 1: could not bring my mind to do any harm, not
Speaker 1: only to Berta, to any human being. I'd met his mother,
Speaker 1: his oldest friends. I'd spoken with his former classmates at
Speaker 1: West Point. All of them were certain of his innocence.
Speaker 1: They couldn't imagine that he could be even tangentially involved
Speaker 1: in a murder, much less planed one. I'm convinced their
Speaker 1: faith and trust in him was sincere. They had no
Speaker 1: hesitancy in vouching for him. They believe he's a good man.
Speaker 1: They love him. Try to imagine, just for a moment,
Speaker 1: that David deserves their trust, that he's been falsely accused.
Speaker 1: If that's the case, those friends and family members have
Speaker 1: been deeply wronged. And then, of course there's the other possibility.
Speaker 1: What if David didn't deserve that trust. In that case,
Speaker 1: the suffering they've endured over the past three years seems
Speaker 1: even worse. It seems cruel. Berta and her family and
Speaker 1: everyone who loved her there obviously the primary victims, but
Speaker 1: no matter the outcome of this trial, they're not going
Speaker 1: to be the only ones. Murders like this are insidious.
Speaker 1: The stims multiply before the judges reached their verdict. There's
Speaker 1: one more step in this trial. The judges want to
Speaker 1: give the people directly affected by this case a chance
Speaker 1: to address the court. First, the judges here from Bart's family,
Speaker 1: her children, Yes, very sorry. His daughter, Bartita Isabel tells
Speaker 1: the judges that her mother raised her and all of
Speaker 1: her siblings to recognize injustice, to always fight on behalf
Speaker 1: of people whose rights had been trampled. But she says
Speaker 1: she never thought they'd have to apply those lessons to
Speaker 1: their own mother. Barrett's youngest daughter, Laura, tells the judges
Speaker 1: that by fighting for her now, they're fighting for all
Speaker 1: the women and mothers who have been victims of violence,
Speaker 1: But she says it's a fight that won't bring back
Speaker 1: all the hugs and the knights with her that they've lost.
Speaker 1: Next is Berta's son Salvador. He's kept a much lower
Speaker 1: profile than his sisters in the years following his mother's murder.
Speaker 1: He addresses the court from a remote video feed. He
Speaker 1: tells the judges that this is a unique opportunity to
Speaker 1: punish not just low level hitmen the poor who are
Speaker 1: paid to kill, but to punish those who pay them,
Speaker 1: the economic powers that support a culture of murder. Together,
Speaker 1: the Cassarus family issues a unified plea deliver a ulty
Speaker 1: verdict and set a precedent that might protect future victims
Speaker 1: and prevent similar crimes. Then, for the first time during
Speaker 1: this trial, David Castillo speaks. He greets everyone in the courtroom,
Speaker 1: including Barton's daughters, but they're not interested in listening to him.
Speaker 1: Both gather their things, rise and walk out of the courtroom.
Speaker 1: As he talks. He says he first wants to thank
Speaker 1: God for the life he's living, despite the challenges of
Speaker 1: the past couple of years, and even though bar To
Speaker 1: his children have left the courtroom, David addresses them. I
Speaker 1: want to say, especially to all of the family members
Speaker 1: of Is, that I had nothing to do with her murder,
Speaker 1: neither directly or indirectly. I want to underscore that I
Speaker 1: did not participate at all. I had no payments, I
Speaker 1: didn't intervene at all. I had no involvement in the
Speaker 1: logistics or in getting weapons. I want to state this
Speaker 1: so that it's clear and present in your minds. Again,
Speaker 1: he says that he and bear To were friends, friends
Speaker 1: who held different points of view on a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but friends nonetheless. While mentioning this, David refers to his mother,
Speaker 1: to Nora, she's sitting in a chair near the rear
Speaker 1: of the courtroom, working her hands nervously. He says his
Speaker 1: mother always raised him to be a good Christian, to
Speaker 1: respect others, and to accept those who don't share the
Speaker 1: same beliefs. He speaks of his father, who died shortly
Speaker 1: after he was detained in prison. He speaks of his
Speaker 1: children who haven't seen their father in three years in
Speaker 1: four months. This has been difficult for me too, obviously,
Speaker 1: but God has a plan from my life. I don't
Speaker 1: understand it and I don't question it. Throughout the trial,
Speaker 1: the prosecutors have described David as a representative of a
Speaker 1: powerful economic and political class. He addresses this, I have
Speaker 1: felt at a disadvantage going against the state prosecutors and
Speaker 1: the teams of private prosecutors, because in reality I don't
Speaker 1: have political or economic power. However, you all you do
Speaker 1: through your systems of communication, with all the political support
Speaker 1: that your organizations received, all your David ends his statement
Speaker 1: asking that the court evaluate all the evidence fairly impartially
Speaker 1: so that he might soon be able to get his
Speaker 1: life back. And that's that. The judges dismiss everyone so
Speaker 1: they can spend the next several days reviewing the evidence,
Speaker 1: and after that they'll call them all back to the
Speaker 1: courtroom for the announcement of the verdict. Five days later,
Speaker 1: the judges sent out a message they've reached a verdict.
Speaker 1: Crowds of Bartes supporters gather outside of the court house.
Speaker 1: For months now, they've transformed the sidewalk in the busy
Speaker 1: street in front of the building into a sort of
Speaker 1: shrine to Bart. They burn incense and arrange candles and
Speaker 1: flowers around her portrait. Some hold signs with pictures of
Speaker 1: her smiling. Others hold pictures of David with one word
Speaker 1: scrawled across his face, guilty. Inside the small courtroom, the
Speaker 1: judges have allowed ten people from David's side and ten
Speaker 1: from Berts to sit in the back. The lead judge
Speaker 1: greets them and assures them that the court has been impartial,
Speaker 1: that the judges have not allowed themselves to be influenced
Speaker 1: by any outside interests. She now says she'll read the
Speaker 1: court's verdict, which was unanimous. She begins with a straightforward
Speaker 1: review of the facts of the case. She outlines the
Speaker 1: damn project, bear to opposition to it, and David's role
Speaker 1: as CEO of Deessa. In that context, managers who oversaw
Speaker 1: the hydroelectric project, including the director, Mr David Castillo, so
Speaker 1: to take action to neutralize the movements and opposition of
Speaker 1: Mrs Berta cass and others in the organization Copine. The
Speaker 1: camera in the court doesn't show David or the judges.
Speaker 1: It's pointed at the spectators in the back of the court.
Speaker 1: Most sit motionless, listening intently. In the front row. David's
Speaker 1: mother sits with her hands in her lap. Her back
Speaker 1: is perfectly straight and her heads held high, but when
Speaker 1: the judge flatly states that her son sought to quote
Speaker 1: neutralize bar to his actions, her head slumps. The lead
Speaker 1: judge says the evidence against David was circumstantial, but she
Speaker 1: says it's the accumulation of numerous strands of circumstantial evidence
Speaker 1: that has allowed them to reach a verdict. She points
Speaker 1: out that David's lawyers suggested that there was evidence that
Speaker 1: others besides David and Essa might have wanted Bear Too dead.
Speaker 1: They implied that other companies that Bear to fought against,
Speaker 1: or even criminals or drug traffickers my eight, have been involved. These,
Speaker 1: in the opinion of this Court, were left as mere hypothesis,
Speaker 1: unconfirmed and furthermore contradicted by others that are in fact
Speaker 1: supported by the technical evidence intercepted from various communications, such
Speaker 1: as extraction of information from telephones and mobile devices, including
Speaker 1: those of Mrs Berta Cassidys, Douglas, Bustillo, Si Rodriguez, and
Speaker 1: the defendant himself, David Castillio. David's mother sits with her
Speaker 1: arms crossed over her chest, staring straight ahead. The judge continues,
Speaker 1: due to all of the above, the Federal Court is
Speaker 1: fully convinced that the circumstantial evidence presented, in addition to
Speaker 1: being sufficient and consistent, establishes with certain did that Roberto
Speaker 1: Castillo has been involved in this case as a co
Speaker 1: author of the crime of murder against Berta Isabel Cassiris.
Speaker 1: He took actions to carry out that objective, had control
Speaker 1: and played a role in how and where the crime
Speaker 1: would be committed. It's at this point one of the
Speaker 1: spectators reaches out to Barton's daughter Laura and grasps her hand,
Speaker 1: a gesture that conveys not so much celebration as a
Speaker 1: simple relief. We as a result, convicted Mr David Castigio
Speaker 1: for the crime of murder against Berta Isabel Cassidism. After
Speaker 1: the verdict, Berta's daughter, Bertita Isabel leads a crowd gathered
Speaker 1: outside in a familiar chant Berta didn't die, she multiplied
Speaker 1: if a condat the guilty verdict issued by Discourt means
Speaker 1: the structures of power didn't succeed in this case in
Speaker 1: breaking the system of justice and the criminal organization of
Speaker 1: the Tela Sabla family, which was instrumental in the guilt
Speaker 1: of David Castillo, did not achieve its goals. Also hit
Speaker 1: you with her family hasn't achieved all of its goals either.
Speaker 1: She says, David Castillo's conviction is a monumental step in
Speaker 1: their quest for justice, but she promises that it won't
Speaker 1: be the last one. The judges today haven't determined David's
Speaker 1: sentence that will come months from now in separate proceedings.
Speaker 1: In Honduras, the minimum sentence for planning a murder is
Speaker 1: twenty years. The maximum is Barrett's family promises to push
Speaker 1: for the harshest penalty possible it is. She says, her
Speaker 1: family will continue to demand that the investors behind Essa,
Speaker 1: including Daniel Atala and the rest of his family, be
Speaker 1: convicted as well. Bartita Isabel hands the microphone to the
Speaker 1: lead prosecutor for the family. He says, hundreds of activists
Speaker 1: and environmentalists have been murdered in Honduras in the past decade.
Speaker 1: He hopes this may be the first conviction of many
Speaker 1: to follow. As he speaks, bar Titza Isabel makes a
Speaker 1: phone call. She connects with her grandmother Barts his mother.
Speaker 1: She's eighty eight years old and she couldn't make it
Speaker 1: to the courthouse today, But bartite Isabelle takes the microphone
Speaker 1: back and holds it to her cell phone. Bart's mother
Speaker 1: wants to thank the people who supported her daughter and
Speaker 1: her family throughout the five long years of this legal process.
Speaker 1: Bart's mother fights back tears. She says that the trial
Speaker 1: has brought back painful memories she's had to relive her
Speaker 1: daughter's murder, but today, with the verdict, she feels a
Speaker 1: measure of relief. She says, now her grief brings her
Speaker 1: just a little less pain. In a parking lot near
Speaker 1: the courthouse, David Castillo is led into the back of
Speaker 1: a large transport truck. The bed of the truck has
Speaker 1: a canopy over it, but the sides are open. Two
Speaker 1: armed guards stand in front of him. He sits on
Speaker 1: a wooden bench. He's wearing jeans, tennis shoes, a clean
Speaker 1: white jacket, and handcuffs. Photographers from the local press snap
Speaker 1: pictures of him as the truck pulls away and carries
Speaker 1: him to prison. What River is reported and written by
Speaker 1: me monte reel Go for Foreheads is our senior producer.
Speaker 1: A theme was composed and performed by Senia Rubinos. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Carlos Rodrigue. Francesca Levi is the head of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg PODCAS. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already,
Speaker 1: and if you like what you hear, please leave us
Speaker 1: a review. It helps others find out about the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.