The Hired Gun of Roberto Micheletti: History of the Torturer Joya Améndola

  Source: Quotha.net

The blood of those who lived through the dirty wars of the 80s in Central America will freeze on hearing the news that the special adviser to the de facto Honduran president is named Billy Joya Améndola.


In order to understand the political culture of the coup junta over which Roberto Michalatti resides is necessary to review the CV of Joya Améndola.

In the 80s Billy Joya Améndola was one of the principal leaders of the Intelligence Battalion 316, in charge of the kidnapping and disappearance of political opponents and founder of the "Lince" and "Cobra" death squads. In this capacity he became one of the principal perpetrators of kidnappings, tortures and assassinations in Honduras, and he has been accused with certainty of at least eleven extrajudicial executions under the pseudonym "Doctor Arranzola."

Furthermore, he is accused of the kidnapping and torture of six students, four of which continue to be disappeared. The students were kidnapped the 27th of April of 1982 from the house of the assistant of the Attorney General of the country, Rafael Rivera, violating the immunity of the second most powerful judge in the country, using methods from the Argentinian dictatorship.

Even if there isn’t definitive proof that Joya Améndola received instruction in the United States, there is proof that he worked in Argentina under the orders of one of the principal repressors, Guillermo Suárez Mason, known among other things for being the principal organizer of child-kidnappings during the last dictatorship. Furthermore he obtained a scholarship from the Honduran army to study in Augusto Pinochet’s Chile.

Afterwards, from 1984 to 1991 he served as a go-between for the Honduran army, the Argentinian repressors and the United Statesians during the dirty war.

The Spanish government has sought the extradition of Joya Améndola various times since 1985 through Interpol, but nonetheless the Honduran judicial system (the same one that has filed 18 legal complaints against Mel Zelaya) never once responded. Despite this, when a judge in Tegucigalpa accused him of kidnapping and torture in 1994 and issued an arrest order for him in 1995, it was in Spain where he took refuge and remained as an asylum applicant until he was expelled in 1998. During those years he worked as a catechizer in a school in Seville.

Today he is the right arm of Roberto Micheletti.