Rogelio Velásquez is a human rights defender from Santa Cruz Barillas in Huehuetenango, who has been working to prevent the installation of a hydroelectric power plant by the Spanish company Hidro Santa Cruz on the lands of the indigenous community. The company is alleged to have used persons with links to the military, paramilitaries and organised crime as security agents, a number of whom are believed to have been involved in physical attacks, threats and killings. A consultation process in which 40,000 residents of Santa Cruz Barillas expressed their opposition to the project was carried out in 2007, and has since been ignored. The defenders were originally sentenced in 2014. The re-trial against the defender began in September 2015. They were found not-guilty in October but have remained in prison awaiting a possible appeal by the prosecution.