Honduran Merchant Accuses Colonel
The owner of a supermarket here that has been one of the main suppliers of provisions to U.S.-backed Nicaraguan contras charged Monday that a Honduran army colonel launched a shooting raid on his house because “he wants the business I have.”
Rodolfo Zelaya, owner of the Supermercado Hermano Pedro, was quoted in local newspapers as charging that Col. Roberto Nunez Montes, chief of army intelligence, ordered 150 policemen to his home last Friday morning. Zelaya, his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law, were briefly detained, the merchant said.
Nunez said he would respond in court if Zelaya brings formal charges against him.
Hermano Pedro, a small food store in the capital, received $6.6 million in U.S. funds paid out for food and other non-military supplies for the contras during the U.S. government’s last fiscal year, according to report earlier this year by the General Accounting Office in Washington.
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