19-year-old beauty queen found dead (PHOTOS)

Two men have been arrested after Honduras beauty queen Maria Jose Alvarado, 19, and her sister were found dead nearly a week after disappearing.

Ms Alvarado and her sister Sofia Trinidad, 23, vanished on Thursday after being seen leaving a party near the northern city of Santa Barbara.

She had been due to compete in the upcoming Miss World contest in London.

Plutarco Ruiz, said to be the boyfriend of Ms Trinidad, was detained along with another man, Aris Maldonado.

The two women’s bodies were found in Cablotales village, near the River Aguagua, National Bureau of Criminal Investigation chief Leandro Osorio said.

Police officers (in bullet-proof jackets) escort Plutarco Ruiz in Santa Barbara, Honduras, 18 November

Police officers in bullet-proof jackets escorted Plutarco Ruiz (second from left ) after his arrest

Aris Valentin Maldonado is escorted by police in Santa Barbara, Honduras, 18 November

Police detained Aris Maldonado in Santa Barbara

Rally in Santa Barbara, Honduras, 18 November

Some had assumed Miss Alvarado was abducted and demonstrated in Santa Barbara on Tuesday in support of her release

Weapons and a car were seized, he added, and a “protected witness” has provided valuable information.

The two women were last seen alive in a car without a licence plate as they left a birthday party on 13 November.

According to Reuters news agency, the two men arrested are believed to be the last people to have seen the young women before they disappeared.

“Both are being questioned as part of the investigation into the disappearance of [Ms Alvarado] and her sister,” police spokesman Jose Coello said.

“We hope to establish what role they may have played.”

According to a UN report, Honduras has the world’s highest homicide rate, with 90.4 people murdered per 100,000 of the population.

-BBC

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ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson

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An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.

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