David Romero Ellner (died 18 July 2020) was a Honduran journalist, lawyer and politician. He was a

Liberal party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

and formerly mayor of Tegucigalpa. He was director of Radio Globo and Globo TV. He was known for his investigations into corruption in the country. He died on 18 July 2020, from COVID-19 that he contracted in prison during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Honduras The COVID-19 pandemic in Honduras is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Honduras on 10 March 2020, whe ...

. Earlier in 2020, CPJ and 190 other agencies urged world leaders to release all journalists imprisoned for their work due to the threat of incurring COVID-19 in prison.

Convictions

In 2002, Romero Ellner was charged with raping his daughter. On 30 July 2002 he was stripped of his

parliamentary immunity Parliamentary immunity, also known as legislative immunity, is a system in which politicians such as president, vice president, governor, lieutenant governor, member of parliament, member of legislative assembly, member of legislative council, s ...

and office. In 2004, he pleaded guilty to raping his daughter and was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was released early, and the prosecutor who tried him has accused him of then embarking on a harassment campaign against her and her family, for which he was tried and found guilty on sixteen counts of libel and defamation in 2016. In January 2019, the Honduras Supreme Court upheld a previous conviction of the journalist; he charged a public prosecutor with corruption in 2016. On March 28, 2019, after exhausting all of his appeals, including the

Supreme Court of Honduras The Supreme Court of Honduras ( es, Corte Suprema de Justicia de Honduras; CSJ) is the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court of Honduras. The Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority in Honduras. Structure, power, and duties There are ...

and the

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR or, in the three other official languages Spanish, French, and Portuguese CIDH, ''Comisión Interamericana de los Derechos Humanos'', ''Commission Interaméricaine des Droits de l'Homme'', ...

, he was arrested by the National Honduran police in a raid on Radio Globo as he was on the air.

References

Honduran journalists Male journalists Honduran rapists 2020 deaths Liberal Party of Honduras politicians Honduran politicians convicted of crimes Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Honduras Prisoners who died from COVID-19 {{Honduras-bio-stub