Honduras: accused mastermind of Berta Cáceres murder to go on trial next month

David Roberto Castillo Mejia, ex-military officer and president of dam company Desa, charged over assassination of activist in 2016

Five years after the Honduran Indigenous leader Berta Caceres was shot dead by hired hitmen, the trial of the US-trained former military officer accused of masterminding the assassination has been scheduled for next month.

Caceres, a winner of the prestigious Goldman prize for environmental defenders, was attacked in her bedroom just before midnight on 2 March 2016 after a long campaign to stop construction of an internationally financed hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River, which the Lenca people consider sacred. Her friend Gustavo Castro, a Mexican environmentalist, was also shot but survived by playing dead.