José Israel López López was the regional representative of the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office of Procuraduría de los Derechos Humanos (PDH), in the Department of Chimaltenango. His duties involved carrying out investigations concerning ongoing PDH investigations of human rights violations. PDH is the primary government organization responsible for investigating human rights violations in Guatemala.
On July 11th 2003 Mr. López was assassinated. Mr. López was the fourth PDH staff member murdered in the past ten months. He took over the post with PDH in April 2003 after the previous representative was forced by persistent death threats to quit. Prior to April 2003 his death Mr. López worked as a judge in various regions of Guatemala.
