Nelson Willy Mejía Mejía is a Honduran military officer who worked in the controversial Battalion 3-16 and government employee who is currently Director-General of Immigration.

Military career

Nelson Willy Mejía Mejía was one of the at least 19 members of the death squad

Death squad

A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign...

 Intelligence Battalion 3-16 who trained at the School of the Americas (SOA)

Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation , formerly the United States Army School of the Americas is a United States Department of Defense educational and training facility at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia in the United States...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. He was also an instructor at the SOA. The human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 NGO COFADEH

Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras

Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras is a human rights NGO in Honduras founded in 1982 by 12 families of disappeared Hondurans, including Bertha Oliva de Nativí , whose husband Professor Tomás Nativí was disappeared in 1981.-Background:Honduras...

 stated that during the 1980's, Nelson Willy Mejía Mejía was responsible for "7 thousand profiles" of persecuted Hondurans who later disappeared

Forced disappearance

In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...

.

In February 1998, a judge in Honduras seized Battalion 3-16 files for use in a trial against Nelson Willy Mejía Mejía.

Civil career

Nelson Willy Mejía Mejía was appointed Director-General of Immigration in the interim government of Roberto Micheletti

Roberto Micheletti

Roberto Micheletti Baín is a former de facto president of Honduras who served as a result of the 2009 coup d'état. The Honduran military was ordered by the Supreme Court to forcefully detain President Manuel Zelaya once the Court stated he was violating the Honduran constitution; Zelaya was exiled...

, following the 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis

2009 Honduran constitutional crisis

The 2009 Honduran constitutional crisis was a political dispute over plans to rewrite the Constitution of Honduras, which culminated in a coup d'état against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by the Honduran military...

.