EL PARAISO, Honduras -- Supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya discovered the body of a young construction worker from Tegucigalpa in a field Saturday near this Nicaraguan border town.
Pedro Magdiel Muñoz Salvador, 23, appeared to be stabbed to death, and a swelling crowd of pro-Zelaya protesters cast him as a victim of the ongoing political crisis.
They paraded his corpse, in a body-bag, up to a police line blocking protesters from reaching the border -- and hurled insults. Zelaya was at Las Manos, Nicaragua, across the line for a second day Saturday, appealing for a big enough crowd to usher him back into power.
Honduras was plunged into political crisis on June 28 when his army's soldiers ousted him at gunpoint, in his pajamas, by order of the Supreme Court in a bloodless coup.
The new government led by Roberto Micheletti has said the only way Zelaya would return would be to face charges of abuse of power, treason and usurping his duties. The attorney general's office has also said it is pursuing charges of corruption and misuse of funds.
The discovery of Salvador's body stoked already tense relations between police, who had detained some protesters, and the 300-400 Zelaya supporters.
Jeering crowd members blamed the police, with chants of ``murderers'' and raised fists. The police countered that Salvador was not among the men who had beens detained.
In a bid to prove it, they invited a delegation of Zelaya supporters into the local station house to demonstrate that his name was not among those on the arrest log.