Jose Barrera Martinez

He was one of the interrogators and an assassin of Battalion 316. In 1987 he left the battalion and asked for political asylum in Canada, under the pretext that he could be killed if he returned to Honduras. He made an exhaustive statement about his participation in the activities carried out by the battalion and confessed to having electrocuted genital organs; asphyxiated different people by covering their faces with rubber bags and also that he once cut off a man’s genitals using a cord.

In an interview with The Baltimore Sun in 1996 Barrera Martinez admitted that he had been trained by the CIA and by Argentinean experts in Honduras and also in an unknown location in the United States. He also said that the CIA was aware of the fact that in Honduras they were using torture as part of the interrogations.

Barrera was deported back to Honduras in February 2001. On arrival he denied everything he had previously confessed to in writing, the same allegations that had suited his purposes for asking for political asylum in Canada. That testimony was considered as proof during Billy Joya Amandola and Alexander Hernandez Santos’ trials. The latter had been accused of illegally arresting six university students in 1982. As a result of his denial, the Attorney General's Office in Honduras accused Barrera of having presented false testimony and ordered his arrest. He is free at present.