QCOSTARICA – The record number of murders in Costa Rica raises the rate to 12 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, according to estimates of Michael Soto, deputy director of the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ).
According to Soto, 2022 will close as the most violent year in the country’s history, exceeding the 603 homicides registered in 2017.
The 2017 record-setting year was followed by a series of drops, to 585 in 2018, 564 in 2019, 570 in 2020 and 588 in 2021.
“If we end up with 625 to 630 homicides due to the increase in the population, we could be closing at a rate of 12, I see it from a technical point of view, more than 600 people who are human beings, good or bad, are dying,” explained Michael Soto.
The investigations allowed linking the homicide of six people with two more cases, all in the Southern Zone. Two cousins were arrested and are currently serving pretrial detention.
Read more: Massacre in Guanacaste: Nicaraguan family came in search of better opportunities and found death
Deputy of Security Minister Daniel Calderón regrets that many of the homicide suspects are criminals who are arrested time and time again.
Calderón gives as an example the case of the young Marco Calzada, whose murderers were arrested on multiple occasions before ending his life.
“The subjects linked to the homicide of Calzada had been arrested by the police twice the same month that they committed the homicide and already had a long history, arrested more than 17 times, and today these people are already free, after being detained again,” Calderón said.
One of the most recent homicides occurred in La Angelina in Ochomogo de Cartago, where a man, still unidentified, was tortured and burned.
