Speaker 1: July is a critical day in the story of Berta
Speaker 1: Cassarus and David Castile. Here's what we know happened. A
Speaker 1: security guard at the Ahwa Zarka Damn's work site shot
Speaker 1: and killed the protester from Copeene, the indigenous rights group
Speaker 1: led by Berta. If you're David, the CEO of the
Speaker 1: company behind the damn, you know this is a crisis.
Speaker 1: The damn has already attracted controversy. Depending on how the
Speaker 1: press reports it, this could make things much worse. Here's
Speaker 1: what else we know. That same day, David sends a
Speaker 1: text message to his colleagues Adessa, his company. He tells
Speaker 1: them pay the reporter from h H h H is
Speaker 1: a Honduran cable news network. David instructs his colleagues to
Speaker 1: offer the reporter two thousand lympiras, which is about out
Speaker 1: eighty dollars today. And those two bits of information that
Speaker 1: someone was killed and that David wanted to pay a
Speaker 1: reporter are the only two facts in this instance that
Speaker 1: investigators and David can seemingly agree on. If you're the
Speaker 1: team investigating David, this looks like a bribe, an attempt
Speaker 1: to spend the incident and provide cover for the project.
Speaker 1: H H didn't respond to a request for comments, but
Speaker 1: David says his company did make that payment and that
Speaker 1: there was nothing wrong with it. Generalists local generalists do
Speaker 1: not have funds to be able to travel far away normally,
Speaker 1: they don't have few to be able to go to
Speaker 1: remote places um even more sound development amountain. David argues
Speaker 1: that the testers, not the company's security guards, had incited
Speaker 1: the violence that day, and unless he covered a local
Speaker 1: journalist's expenses to come to the area, no one in
Speaker 1: Honduras would ever hear his side of the story. In
Speaker 1: his version, this wasn't a breach of ethics. It was
Speaker 1: a public service. We wanted the news. We wanted the
Speaker 1: people of Honduras to know exactly what was going on,
Speaker 1: what was happening, what we were being victims of during
Speaker 1: this time. The debate over the meaning of this text
Speaker 1: might seem like a side note in the Berte Cathros
Speaker 1: murder case, but investigators say it's important that it helps
Speaker 1: establish a pattern where Dessa used influence and money to
Speaker 1: twist institutions to their will. They say it was part
Speaker 1: of Dessa's corporate culture, and messages like that support or
Speaker 1: other even more important texts conversations that prosecutors say directly
Speaker 1: tie David Castillo to the murder plot itself. But David
Speaker 1: will attempt to explain every one of these seemingly incriminating texts.
Speaker 1: We're going to explore some of the most crucial exchanges
Speaker 1: in this episode. This will give us a glimpse into
Speaker 1: a big part of his defense, because ultimately, so much
Speaker 1: could rest on how he explains them and whether a
Speaker 1: judge finds his counter narrative convincing. I'm monte Reel for
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Green and this is Blood River. The text exchange
Speaker 1: we're going to start with involves messages sent between David
Speaker 1: and Douglas Bustillo, and before we get into the messages themselves,
Speaker 1: it's important to say a little bit about the relationship
Speaker 1: between these two men and the timing of this exchange. Bustillo,
Speaker 1: if you recall, was the former security chief for Deessa
Speaker 1: at the Agua Zarca work site, and this particular exchange
Speaker 1: of messages happened in November. That's right around the time
Speaker 1: when Berta and Copeene resumed their protests against the damn.
Speaker 1: Now it might seem strange that the two men, David
Speaker 1: and Bustillo, would have any correspondence at all around that time.
Speaker 1: That's because months earlier, in July, David actually had fired
Speaker 1: Boustillo as his head of security at Awa Zarca, and
Speaker 1: he says one of the reasons he did it was
Speaker 1: because Berta asked him to. Berta asked me personally to
Speaker 1: fire Bustio from from the project site, and when I
Speaker 1: found a chance due to poor behavior and lack of
Speaker 1: judgment from from Mr Bustio, he was He was fired
Speaker 1: sometime around July of two thousand. He got caught drunk
Speaker 1: driving Andy company vehicle, which was unacceptable to us. So
Speaker 1: fast forward a few months from that firing to the
Speaker 1: fall of Bustillo is no longer working for David, at
Speaker 1: least not a ficially, but the text show that David
Speaker 1: and Boustillo are still in touch and they're still working
Speaker 1: together on something. That November, Boustillo sends a message to David,
Speaker 1: one that prosecutors alleged is very important. It's the one
Speaker 1: where Boustillo asked David about the quote. Investigators have alleged
Speaker 1: that these messages refer to payments made by David or
Speaker 1: his company to Bustillo, and that the payments are connected
Speaker 1: to the plot to kill Berta. In this message, Bustillo
Speaker 1: greets David by name and writes in Spanish. As it's typed,
Speaker 1: that translates literally as a request complete. A smoother translation
Speaker 1: might be give me the David responds, telling Bostio to
Speaker 1: meet him at a Lee's restaurant in a shopping mall.
Speaker 1: Investigators believe Bustillo is asking for a payment half of
Speaker 1: the money that he's owed for helping to plan the
Speaker 1: murder and to hire the hitman. They say one of
Speaker 1: Bustillo's bank accounts shows a deposit of about four thousand
Speaker 1: dollars shortly before this call. Roxanna Athols is one of
Speaker 1: the members of the investigating team put together by Berta's family.
Speaker 1: She says the timing of these messages is important. It's November.
Speaker 1: This is the same month when Berta and Copeine resumed
Speaker 1: their protests at the Gualcarque River against Dessa. This is
Speaker 1: after more than a year of relative calm at the site,
Speaker 1: and when Davi Costillo realizes Da Copin is going to
Speaker 1: continue to oppose the damn project um. We think. Also
Speaker 1: in November of two thousand fifty is when the murder,
Speaker 1: the plot we canst take shape to kill her. So
Speaker 1: how does David explain these messages where Boustillo asked him
Speaker 1: for the Well, it starts with a typo. Boustillo wrote
Speaker 1: the word again as written in Spanish, it's a command.
Speaker 1: But if you put an accent mark on the last
Speaker 1: letter of the word, the meaning changes. With an accent mark,
Speaker 1: the word would not be a command, it would be
Speaker 1: a statement, would mean I completed. Boustillo did not put
Speaker 1: an accent mark on that word, but David says he
Speaker 1: meant to. It's just that when you're typing texts, you're
Speaker 1: not so careful with punctuation. So David says he understood
Speaker 1: the text from Boustillo to mean I completed. In other words,
Speaker 1: Boustillo was saying he'd finished half of a job he
Speaker 1: was supposed to do. Remember, David had already fired Bustillo,
Speaker 1: but he says he realized Boustillo could still be of service.
Speaker 1: David says no one knew the copine protesters in Rio
Speaker 1: Blanco better than Boustillo, his former head of security. He
Speaker 1: had lived among those protesters for years. David says, Bustillo's
Speaker 1: job that November was to convince two local residents, men
Speaker 1: who had previously always been aligned with Copinge against Dessa,
Speaker 1: to come to the other side to work with the company.
Speaker 1: So we had asked Bustillo that he knew them to
Speaker 1: recruit them. Refers to that he had recruited one of them.
Speaker 1: He had completed what we had requested from him, David says.
Speaker 1: The second potential recruit never panned out, So that is
Speaker 1: the context surrounding the message. Tausto says, I have completed
Speaker 1: the work of It has nothing to do with funding.
Speaker 1: So David dismisses this entire exchange as meaningless. It was
Speaker 1: all about a recruiting drive, a misinterpretation that started with
Speaker 1: a missing accent mark. This brings us to another important
Speaker 1: text string again. This one is between David and Douglas Bustillo.
Speaker 1: It takes place a couple of months later in February,
Speaker 1: about a month before Barton's actual murder in early Mark
Speaker 1: ch So what we think happened in early February was
Speaker 1: there is an effort to kill Berta. Roxanna says this
Speaker 1: was the failed effort to kill her, an attempt that
Speaker 1: was abandoned when the would be killers saw that Berta's
Speaker 1: daughters were with her at the house. Immediately after that,
Speaker 1: Boustillo sent another message to David. He says, Mission aborta
Speaker 1: Mission aborted bias for lack of resources. David says that
Speaker 1: this mission had nothing to do with Berta. He says
Speaker 1: that Boustillo's still doing work for him now and then
Speaker 1: at this point, and not just around Rio Blanco. In fact,
Speaker 1: David says that by February, he was considering hiring Bustillo
Speaker 1: as a security manager for a solar project he was
Speaker 1: developing in another region completely separate from the Ahwa Zarca site.
Speaker 1: He says there was a substation connected to that solar
Speaker 1: project that had been taken over by gangs. The site
Speaker 1: was effectively held for ransom. David says he wanted Boustillo
Speaker 1: to visit that solar site to do some reconnaissance and
Speaker 1: to figure out how many security guards would be needed
Speaker 1: to secure the place, but Bostio had to abandon that visit.
Speaker 1: He could not travel to the project on that a
Speaker 1: specific date. He was going to travel at a later date.
Speaker 1: Mission aborted again. David says investigators simply misinterpreted the meaning
Speaker 1: of the texts, he and Boustillo weren't focused on murdering Berta.
Speaker 1: He says they were preoccupied with a solar project. David
Speaker 1: says this explains a message that he sent to Boustillo.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, remember the accidents and the scene. I
Speaker 1: think if you look at that text in the context
Speaker 1: of the plan, it means clean up after yourself. At
Speaker 1: least that's the way I would interpret it. But David
Speaker 1: says this was a reference to the incident that led
Speaker 1: him to fire Boustillo from Deessa. Months before the drunk
Speaker 1: driving incident, David says Bustillo had made a scene in
Speaker 1: the town square where he wrecked his vehicle. David says
Speaker 1: he was reminding Bustillo of that unfortunate event before he
Speaker 1: made his trip to visit the solar plant in the
Speaker 1: town of Choluteca. That's why we were not going to
Speaker 1: provide or allow him to drive any vehicles from from
Speaker 1: from this and when he was going to go to Chotea. So,
Speaker 1: David says that exchange, which prosecutors say supports their theory
Speaker 1: of the aborted murder attempt, was also completely unrelated to Berta.
Speaker 1: But there's a complicating factor here. Investigators know that around
Speaker 1: the same time Boustillo was in contact with David, Boustillo
Speaker 1: was also in contact with Mariano Diaz. He's the military
Speaker 1: officer whose phone coincidentally was tapped as part of a
Speaker 1: drug and kidnapping investigation. Prosecutors say Diaz was also helping
Speaker 1: coordinate the murder. Additionally, both Diaz and Boustillo were in
Speaker 1: direct contact with a guy named Henry Hernantez. Hernandez was
Speaker 1: arrested as one of the hitman who had broken into
Speaker 1: Berta's house the night of the murder. Police had used
Speaker 1: cell phone data to place him there at her subdivision
Speaker 1: on that night, and later Hernandez admitted to being there.
Speaker 1: He didn't say he killed Barton. He claimed he was
Speaker 1: essentially dragged there against his will by the other hitman,
Speaker 1: whom he implicated. So, why, when Boostillo is supposed to
Speaker 1: be working with David on a solar project, is he
Speaker 1: talking to Mariano Diaz and Henry Hernandez at the same time,
Speaker 1: And why a week before all of that was Boustillo
Speaker 1: himself in Berta's subdivision taking pictures of her house, and
Speaker 1: according to phone data, he'd return there again about a
Speaker 1: week before the actual murder. David says he doesn't know
Speaker 1: why Boustillo was doing any of that when he was
Speaker 1: supposed to be concentrating on a solar project. He doesn't
Speaker 1: know why Bustillo had been in contact through the time
Speaker 1: of the actual murder with marian o'diaz or Henry Hernandez.
Speaker 1: David says he only knows it had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with him or his company. No, Montitez has absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: to do with has absolutely nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: work we had requested. Was teal to do the conversations
Speaker 1: that was we're heavy, if they were a parallel, if
Speaker 1: he was addressing any issues with either Bodeano or others,
Speaker 1: were totally unrelated to us, and we had known ledge about.
Speaker 1: Many of David's critics say his explanation of the text
Speaker 1: to Boostello reveal a pattern. They say David wrote to
Speaker 1: him in a coded language designed to obscure meaning, and
Speaker 1: they also argue that his friendly text to bear to
Speaker 1: herself were part of a similar strategy that at the
Speaker 1: same time that he was plotting her murder, he was
Speaker 1: protecting himself and planting the seeds for his future defense.
Speaker 1: Billy Kite used to work for Global Witness, a London
Speaker 1: based human rights organization. In November, he was in Honduras
Speaker 1: preparing a report about violence against activists. He met with
Speaker 1: Berta then. This was around the same time that David
Speaker 1: and Bustillo were exchanging the fifty texts. Also, at this time,
Speaker 1: David was offering to pay for Berta's mother's medical care.
Speaker 1: Billy kept notes about his conversation with Berta. He says
Speaker 1: David Castillo was a topic of discussion. She said to
Speaker 1: me that he would often call her um, always with
Speaker 1: a fake, kind of you know, friendly tone, wanted to
Speaker 1: be her friend. The text that David's team has produced
Speaker 1: show that David and Berta were exchanging messages in the
Speaker 1: days before Billy met with her. David says he sent
Speaker 1: assistance to the medical officers where her mother was being
Speaker 1: treated to pay some of those costs. Billie says bert
Speaker 1: To suspected David was trying to bribe her. She told
Speaker 1: me that two days previously, when when I when I
Speaker 1: met her so Monday, the I think it was the
Speaker 1: second of November, he had called her again a kind
Speaker 1: of familiar tone, and then he offered her a bribe
Speaker 1: to to stop her her activism. Um so the exact
Speaker 1: words and these are from my notes from that day,
Speaker 1: where so let's come to an agreement. It is what
Speaker 1: that she she told me that he had said to
Speaker 1: her on that phone call on the second of November.
Speaker 1: And obviously she told me she she refused, she wasn't
Speaker 1: by any means a friend of de Wiksti or she
Speaker 1: she knew the games that he was he was playing.
Speaker 1: She knew that he was the one who who was
Speaker 1: putting the strings with David and jail. Dessa's defense team
Speaker 1: hired Amsterdam and Partners, law firm based in London and Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. One of its specialties is crisis management. Previous
Speaker 1: clients have included prime ministers, the internet entrepreneur Kim dot Com,
Speaker 1: and even the Turkish government. The firm published a report
Speaker 1: defending Dessa and attacking Copine. It was titled the War
Speaker 1: on Development Exposing the Copine disinformation campaign surrounding the Berta
Speaker 1: Cassarus case in Honduras. Robert Amsterdam, the head of the firm,
Speaker 1: posted a video on his Twitter feed about eight months
Speaker 1: after David was arrested. He argued that it would make
Speaker 1: no sense for Dessa to be involved with Berta's murder.
Speaker 1: He said everyone at the company had known that violence
Speaker 1: was the one thing they could have sunk their hydro
Speaker 1: electric project, because they learned that lesson in when the
Speaker 1: protester was shot by the security guard at the work site.
Speaker 1: There was absolutely no business motive for murdering Castras, because
Speaker 1: when one protester was killed by a member of the
Speaker 1: army a year before, that had stopped the project. So
Speaker 1: it would be very clear Todessa that any involvement with
Speaker 1: respect to Berta would have ended the project Number one
Speaker 1: number two. On the day of her death, a journalist
Speaker 1: has stated that he spoke to Berta and she was
Speaker 1: worried about a threat she received from a mining company
Speaker 1: Amsterdam is referring to texts bear To exchanged with a
Speaker 1: Swiss journalist. This happened on March second, about five and
Speaker 1: a half hours before she was killed. The journalist was
Speaker 1: working on a project about mining. He asked her, if
Speaker 1: he might is that the areas where she worked to
Speaker 1: take pictures of mining impacts. Bear To responded, here, we
Speaker 1: have not allowed mining company's entry. Then she followed that
Speaker 1: with there are serious threats, very serious. We know the topic.
Speaker 1: We can talk. David's defense team believes this text exchange
Speaker 1: illustrates an important point. Berta had made lots of enemies
Speaker 1: throughout lots of industries. Berta's backers do not believe Berta
Speaker 1: was referring to a specific threat on her life from
Speaker 1: a specific company. When Berta spoke of the Ahwazarka dam,
Speaker 1: she often warned that it might be a gateway for mining.
Speaker 1: She put it this way, If the dam were built,
Speaker 1: its electricity wouldn't benefit the locals. It was more likely
Speaker 1: to benefit mining companies who would use the power to
Speaker 1: move into the region. David's team argues the texts raised
Speaker 1: the possibility of other suspects, suspects that never were seriously considered,
Speaker 1: they say, because investigators were determined to blame Dessa. David's
Speaker 1: lawyers claimed the messages had been purposefully hidden by prosecutors
Speaker 1: who didn't flag them as being significant. David's defense team, however,
Speaker 1: labeled Berta's text to that journalist as being of quote
Speaker 1: transcendental importance. David's team, in fact, has tried to prove
Speaker 1: that all of the prosecution's phone data, the text messages,
Speaker 1: what'sapp chats, should carry no weight in court. They say
Speaker 1: the state's lead forensic technician, the person who extracted the
Speaker 1: data from the phones, was biased, that she didn't follow
Speaker 1: proper technical protocols. This has become a cornerstone of David's defense.
Speaker 1: When we saw her report, we noticed inconsistencies that we
Speaker 1: knew they were not true, and you will be surprised
Speaker 1: that we have found out more evidence that she has
Speaker 1: manipulated more phone calls and more phone data. David's lawyers
Speaker 1: contended in court last year the message strings from different
Speaker 1: chat groups got mixed together, and so they say the
Speaker 1: court was given transcripts where unrelated messages appear as if
Speaker 1: they flow together, and when transcribing a few of the
Speaker 1: chat strings, the lawyers say the prosecution omitted messages that
Speaker 1: were part of those conversations. They gave a couple of
Speaker 1: examples in a court filing. The most significant involved the
Speaker 1: WhatsApp conversation from October, about five months before Bart's murder.
Speaker 1: Sergie Rodriguez, Dessa's environmental and social manager, wrote to David
Speaker 1: and other Dessa employees. In the message, Sergio refers to
Speaker 1: Berta and to Thomas Gomez, one of her colleagues with Copine.
Speaker 1: Sergio wrote, Obviously, as long as Thomas and Berta don't arrive,
Speaker 1: the movement weakens and there is little mobilization power. We
Speaker 1: thus must also direct actions against them. Prosecutors highlighted this
Speaker 1: message because it comes right at the time Copeine was
Speaker 1: ramping up protests against Dessa. David's lawyers say the DEASA
Speaker 1: employees exchanged additional messages eleven days later in the same chat.
Speaker 1: Those messages refer to a lawyer. The defense says that
Speaker 1: proves the actions Sergio was suggesting were legal actions, not violence.
Speaker 1: David's defense team also argues that the government's technical expert
Speaker 1: changed the dates of messages to frame him. The example
Speaker 1: of this David gave me was that string of messages
Speaker 1: between him and Douglas Bustillo, the one from November, around
Speaker 1: the time that prosecutors Saydessa began plotting Berta's murder. This
Speaker 1: is that fifty percent text Bustillo sent to David, the
Speaker 1: one prosecutors say referred to a payment. They say Boustillo
Speaker 1: was asking David to pay him half of what was
Speaker 1: owed for arranging the preliminary murder plans. David told me
Speaker 1: that investigators presented those messages as unfolding, not in November,
Speaker 1: but in February. She lied, did not happen in in
Speaker 1: in February. This really confused me. I had seen those
Speaker 1: texts referred to several times, and every time I'd seen them,
Speaker 1: they clearly were labeled as having taken place in November,
Speaker 1: not in February. In fact, the November date seemed central
Speaker 1: to the narrative that Guy Pay and the State had reconstructed.
Speaker 1: They argued that David and the others had begun planning
Speaker 1: the murder in November. That's when COPINE resumed its protests,
Speaker 1: and it's when David and Bustillo had exchanged that string
Speaker 1: of messages. In February was the time of the failed
Speaker 1: murder attempt, when the mission aboarded texts came. I told
Speaker 1: David that I had examined that string and I couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything that suggested that prosecutors had changed the date
Speaker 1: from November to February. But I and I looked at it,
Speaker 1: it says that it was from November. Well, in one
Speaker 1: report they changed the date and it was presented as
Speaker 1: if it was in February. So I looked again and
Speaker 1: I found an example of what he was talking about
Speaker 1: when he was indicted. Prosecutors presented a summary description of
Speaker 1: the facts to the court. It says the original planning
Speaker 1: was in November, but that in quote the months of
Speaker 1: January and February Boustillo asked David to make a fifty
Speaker 1: advance on payment agreed to that was wrong. Later the
Speaker 1: correct date was attached to those texts, but not here.
Speaker 1: This might seem like a minor point, but David and
Speaker 1: his defense team argue that these sorts of discrepancies add up.
Speaker 1: The foundation of the prosecution's case is the presentation and
Speaker 1: interpretation of text messages. David's lawyers argue that if the
Speaker 1: prosecution can't be trusted to correctly handle and interpret that evidence,
Speaker 1: how can any part of the case against him stand?
Speaker 1: And all of this underscores a strange aspect of this case.
Speaker 1: Both the victim's family and the defense have argued that
Speaker 1: the Honduran justice system can't be trusted the justice is
Speaker 1: in shaky hands. Both have said the state, at various
Speaker 1: points in the process, has made a mess of the case.
Speaker 1: The Honduran Public Prosecutor's office denies the family's claims that
Speaker 1: police mishandled the investigation and that court proceedings have been corrupted,
Speaker 1: but the court case against David practically ground to a
Speaker 1: halt for more than a year. One reason is David's
Speaker 1: defense team has ald appeals arguing the text messages were manipulated.
Speaker 1: Those proceedings repeatedly delayed the preliminary hearing the determines if
Speaker 1: his case will go to trial. With each delay, the
Speaker 1: demands for justice from Artes supporters grew louder. Under Honduran law,
Speaker 1: a person cannot be held for more than two and
Speaker 1: a half years without going to trial. For David, that
Speaker 1: deadline expires on September two of this year. Vertas family
Speaker 1: says the defenses appeals have all been part of a
Speaker 1: strategy delay the process, run out the clock and allowed
Speaker 1: David to be released from custody. David denies this. He
Speaker 1: says he hopes for a fair trial, but doesn't accept
Speaker 1: the idea that government investigators have acted in good faith.
Speaker 1: He says they've had two and a half years to
Speaker 1: put together a case against him, and holding him indefinitely
Speaker 1: violates his rights. Were institutions sometimes delivered weak results. The
Speaker 1: first test of the Honduran justice system in the bar
Speaker 1: Te Cassarus case came with the trials of several men
Speaker 1: who were arrested nearly two years before David. They included
Speaker 1: four accused hitmen and a couple of people with ties
Speaker 1: to Dessa. One was Sergio Rodriguez, the AWA's ARCA Projects,
Speaker 1: environmental and social manager. Another was Douglass Bustillo, the former
Speaker 1: security chief accused of plotting the crime with David and
Speaker 1: the others. Seraghi O had denied all involvement, starting with
Speaker 1: the allegations that he threatened Berta. Multiple witnesses from Copeine
Speaker 1: had said Sergio had threatened Berta during a specific protest
Speaker 1: and at another one in early Sergio insisted his interaction
Speaker 1: with Berta at one of the protests was friendly and
Speaker 1: that he hadn't even been at the other one. In fact,
Speaker 1: Sergio's lawyers presented cell phone and credit card records showing
Speaker 1: he'd been into Gooseigalpa, hours away from the Damn site
Speaker 1: at the time of that particular demonstration. His defense showed
Speaker 1: that there were no financial transactions that could be traced
Speaker 1: between him, Ordessa, and the other accused co conspirators, and
Speaker 1: Sergio's telephone experts argued that the evidence clearly showed that
Speaker 1: he had not been in contact with Mariano Diaz, the
Speaker 1: military officer charged with plotting logistics, or with anyone accused
Speaker 1: of being at the scene of the crime. Sergio says
Speaker 1: he believes the expert witnesses testifying on his behalf made
Speaker 1: a convincing case. Jalla conclusion. They came to the conclusion
Speaker 1: that in all of the telephone communications or in the
Speaker 1: text messages that I wrote, there is no evidence at
Speaker 1: all that links me to the death of Berta caris
Speaker 1: noiinging in this cam but the court concluded that there
Speaker 1: was enough evidence to show he'd been involved in the planning. Sergio,
Speaker 1: along with Douglas Boustillo, Mariano Diaz, and four others accused
Speaker 1: of being part of the squad of hitmen. We're all
Speaker 1: found guilty. Some avowed to fight with appeals, but in December,
Speaker 1: a full year after that verdict, they were sentenced. The
Speaker 1: gunmen got fifty years each. Boostillo, Diaz, and Sergio were
Speaker 1: each sentenced to thirty years in prison. It wouldn't have
Speaker 1: surprised a lot of people if no one had ever
Speaker 1: been brought to justice uh for Berta Casta's murder. James Neilan,
Speaker 1: who had been the US ambassador to Honduras at the
Speaker 1: time of the murder, says successful murder convictions in Honduras
Speaker 1: are exceedingly rare, and harsh sentences are almost unheard of.
Speaker 1: He believes that international pressure, as well as some practical
Speaker 1: assistants during the investigation, turn this particular case into an
Speaker 1: almost unprecedented success story. I see it as a great
Speaker 1: achievement because if you know as much about unders as
Speaker 1: I do, you know that it could have gone in
Speaker 1: a very different way. I'm proud of the work that
Speaker 1: a lot of people did on that case. Obviously, Hondurans
Speaker 1: were at the at the center of it, but there
Speaker 1: were people from the United States Embassy who did fabulous
Speaker 1: and unsun work on that case. And uh, I think
Speaker 1: I can say with a straight face that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: see the result that you've seen if it hadn't been
Speaker 1: for their work. The Cassarras family applauded the verdicts, but
Speaker 1: they certainly didn't celebrate. They reminded people that those who
Speaker 1: had been sentenced relatively low level players in a much
Speaker 1: larger scheme. They feared complacency that people would think these
Speaker 1: convictions amount to justice being done, but the family believed
Speaker 1: Sergio and the others were simply being sacrificed to protect
Speaker 1: the real criminals in this case, the executives like David
Speaker 1: Castillo and the investors behind his company. Just a few
Speaker 1: weeks after Sergio and the six others were sentenced in
Speaker 1: the murder, a Honduran government agency announced that it was
Speaker 1: seeking one billion dollars for the construction of fifty four
Speaker 1: new hydro electric projects throughout the country. Barretta's daughter, ber
Speaker 1: Tita Isabel, says that announcement felt like a slap in
Speaker 1: the face and no, no I no moza. Among ourselves,
Speaker 1: we said, no, we are not going to achieve what
Speaker 1: we are searching for. We said, they're insulting us with
Speaker 1: this announcement. They're insulting the memory of my mummy. They
Speaker 1: were saying, Okay, you can have these seven guys and
Speaker 1: leave them in jail for thirty years, fifty years, but
Speaker 1: we have loads more projects on the way to profit from.
Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with energy or the right
Speaker 1: to energy. It's about economic profits, period, announce economic David's case, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: seemed to be going nowhere. But this summer in August
Speaker 1: the Honduran court made a surprise announcement. It removed the
Speaker 1: judge that had overseen the case, replacing her with a
Speaker 1: new one. Bartes supporters were shocked. They described it as
Speaker 1: a last minute surprise. In just two weeks, the time
Speaker 1: limit on keeping David in custody would expire. If no
Speaker 1: trial is set, according to the law, David might be released.
Speaker 1: Copine issued a statement, this subjects the process two forms
Speaker 1: of manipulation and procedural trickery. And it wasn't just Copeine
Speaker 1: expressing alarm. The Twitter account of the U. S. House
Speaker 1: Foreign Affairs Committee quoted New York Congressman Elliott Ingle I
Speaker 1: urge Honduran authorities to act swiftly to bring Castillo to
Speaker 1: trial and provide justice for the Cassaris family. Later the
Speaker 1: same week, the preliminary hearing in David's case was finally held.
Speaker 1: David's lawyers argued that telephone text messages were manipulated and
Speaker 1: couldn't be trusted. Prosecutors said the evidence against him was
Speaker 1: clear and definitive. Next week, the court must make a decision.
Speaker 1: Will David Castillo finally stand trial? That's next time. On
Speaker 1: the season finale of Blood River m Blood River is
Speaker 1: written and reported by me monte reel sofra Fores is
Speaker 1: our senior producer. My Aquava is our associate producer. Our
Speaker 1: theme was composed and performed by Senior Rubinos. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Carlos Rodriguts. Francesca Levi is the head of Bloomberg Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already, and if
Speaker 1: you like what you hear, please leave us a review.
Speaker 1: It helps others find out about the show. Thanks for listening.