TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Honduras will ask Mexico to extradite an alleged gang member suspected in the killings of at least 43 people, including 28 in a 2004 Christmas bus massacre, officials said Wednesday.
Rodolfo Salinas was detained Tuesday in the Mexican city of Tapachula, on the border with Guatemala, Honduran security department spokesman Hector Mejia said.
Honduras' Interpol chief Nelson Francisco Murillo said Salinas is wanted in connection with 40 killings in Honduras and three in the United States. Murillo said he had no further details.
A Tapachula police spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give his name, said Salinas was allegedly among 10 gang members who shot up a bus full of Christmas shoppers and commuters on Dec. 23, 2004, in the northern city of San Pedro Sula.
Officials said at the time that the bus attack was apparently revenge from gangs angry at a government crackdown on their operations.
Mejia said Salinas is also linked to the death of the President Manuel Zelaya's ex-bodyguard, former army Capt. Alejandro Motino, who was gunned down in 2007 in Tegucigalpa.