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Film about tragedy aims beyond justice

The son of a Tampa lawyer who was killed in Honduras in 2000 tells the family's story, but he doesn't want tears.

By EMILY NIPPS
Published September 1, 2006

CARROLLWOOD - Albert Lima's slaying was an international mystery to all but his closest friends and family members. They were sure they knew exactly who killed him.

Yet after the former Tampa lawyer was shot twice in the back of the head during a February 2000 business trip in Honduras, getting Honduran police and U.S. Embassy officials to follow the clues seemed futile. Lima's wife and two children grew increasingly impatient with the lack of progress on the case. So Lima's son, Paul, took matters into his own hands.

"My brother started doing his own research," said Kristina Lima, Albert Lima's daughter and Paul's older sister. "We were getting letters from the U.S. Embassy in Honduras on a quarterly basis saying they were still looking into it, blah, blah, blah. Same letter, different date."

Paul Lima, 27, didn't just do his own research to try and hunt down his father's killer and bring him to justice. He filmed a documentary about the Lima family's plight over the past six years, along with interviews with U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa, several Honduran officials, Albert Lima's former friends and co-workers, and several other experts who weighed in on the case. The film, My Father's People, has been screened in Los Angeles and will be shown at an invitation-only screening Saturday at Tampa Pitcher Show in Carrollwood.

"This isn't about my remorse or feeling bad," said Paul Lima, a Tampa Preparatory School graduate who lives in Los Angeles and runs a film company called Big Al Productions. "This is an opportunity to use my father's story to share with other citizens the truth about how we're protected overseas."

The inspiration for the film came from the Lima family's anger and hopelessness.

Albert Lima, who was 57 at the time of his death, traveled to Honduras in 2000 to evict a family that was running a commercial bakery that he had invested in 10 years earlier. He never returned, and his family later learned he was shot execution-style and found on a mountainside on Roatan, a resort island.

According to the Limas, the family received occasional letters from the U.S. Embassy telling them the investigation was ongoing, even though one of the brothers who ran the bakery, Oral Coleman, was identified as a suspect. When Paul Lima traveled to Honduras in 2004, he found Coleman within a week by searching Social Security files in Honduras. He was working at another bakery.

Coleman is in jail and is awaiting a trial, which Lima was hoping to include in his documentary. However, after talking to U.S. Embassy officials a month ago, he learned the trial may not take place for up to two years, and it's nothing like the U.S. judicial system. In Honduras, he learned, criminals are tried before a group of judges sitting at a table, rather than in a courtroom and jury setting.

"I'm in the mind-set that it doesn't matter what happens because it's not going to bring my father back," said Kristina Lima, 31, who owns Gourmet Pizza Co. in South Tampa. "I do want to see justice served because that's what my father would want."

Paul Lima said his film is more of a political commentary rather than a personal tragedy story. He said he hopes to open people's eyes about what the U.S. Embassy really does and how vulnerable American travelers are.

The film comes not long after Congress approved the Central America Free Trade Agreement, a pact that promotes free trade between the United States and the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, as well as the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Lima feels that the U.S. government is not doing enough to warn American investors and business owners about the dangers of doing business in foreign countries.

Many support Lima's views and were happy to lend their commentary to his cause.

"Albert Lima's brutal murder was a terrible tragedy made worse by the gross failure of the Honduran government to bring his killer to justice," said congressman Davis, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, in an e-mail. "I commend Paul for his tireless efforts to bring his father's story to life on screen and to pressure Honduran officials to arrest the sole suspect in Albert's case.

"Nothing can fill the void that Albert's loss left, but I hope this film brings some comfort to Albert's family."

After the Tampa screening, Lima hopes to package the film as a docudrama and pitch it to HBO in his effort to spread his message.

"If people watch this film and all they think is, 'Wow, I really feel bad for the Lima family and what they went through,' then I failed," Lima said. "They should sit there and feel scared for themselves as American travelers."

Emily Nipps can be reached at (813) 269-5313 or nipps@sptimes.com

[Last modified August 30, 2006, 12:35:53]