Assassination of the anti-coup resistance leader in the southern Honduran region clouds even more the tense political atmosphere in the country, ahead of the questioned elections on Sunday.

The National Front against the Coup d’Etat leader Luis Gradis Espinal’s corpse was found on Tuesday after he was arrested by the police, human rights authorities denounced.

Reports by the Front said 56-year-old Luis Gradis Espinal, retired teacher, had left on Sunday southern Valle department for the capital, and his whereabouts had been unknown since then.

A witness said the vehicle in which she was travelling with Luis Gradis Espinal was stopped at the city’s Beltway by a police patrol and the teacher was arrested and also beaten with a pistol in his head.

The Detainees and Missing People’s Relatives’ Committee (CAFADEH) reported that Espinal’s corpse was found in Las Casitas sector, in the capital’s western area.

In a communique, the National Front warned that the repressive corpses have increased security and persecution of the resistance members.

The organization highlighted that this policy has come “to the point of declaring a state of emergency that could be a preliminary to a military offensive against unarmed people.”

That alliance of people forces reiterated a call to ignore actively the elections, which it considers a complete sham to legitimize the military coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office on June 28.