Honduras mayor arrested on suspicion of paying assassins to murder rivals

Delvin Salgado detained at gunpoint as police clamp down on systematic crime and violence

Delvin Salgado insisted to police that he had nothing to do with the alleged crimes (Honduras Police)

A local mayor in Honduras has been arrested on suspicion of directing a number of assassins to murder rivals and having connections to organised crime.

Delvin Salgado, from the town of El Negrito in the north of the country, was detained at gunpoint as Honduran police continue to tackle corruption and links to organised crime among mayors and politicians.

Prosecutors said Mr Salgado had been detained for “assassination and illicit affiliation”, including the hiring of hitmen, and accused him of being involved in two murders in 2013 and 2014.

The arrest of Mr Salgado was one of over 100 raids carried out by police across the country on the same day as a number of suspected drugs traffickers, arms dealers and human traffickers were taken into custody.

At least 35 of the country's mayors and deputy mayors have been investigated for illegal activity and corruption since the police crackdown began last year.

At the same time, over 300 senior police officials have been fired and over 10,000 investigated for suspected links to a range of crimes.

“I swear on my mother and father who just passed away, that I have nothing to do with this,” Mr Salgado said outside his home in El Negrito on the morning of his arrest, according to local reports.

In January, Honduras’s President Juan Orlando Hernandez unveiled a new international anti-corruption body to deal with criminal networks within the country’s judicial systems.

The Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras was established after a report detailed how organised crime’s infiltration of weak and corrupt state institutions had helped make Honduras one of the most violent countries in the region.

Honduras is said to have one of the highest murder rates in the world, with 60 killings per 100,000 inhabitants every year.