The former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, will appear today for the first time before a Federal Court in New York.
Just three months after leaving office, a handcuffed Hernandez boarded a plane Thursday with Drug Enforcement Agency agents bound for New York, where he faces charges in the Southern District of New York federal court in Brooklyn. .
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernández “abused his position as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022 to operate the country as a narco-state.”
In court documents, US prosecutors alleged that Hernández was involved in a “corrupt and violent drug trafficking conspiracy” that moved more than 550 tons of cocaine into the United States. He was charged with participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
Prosecutors accuse Hernández of having received millions of dollars from drug cartels, including the famous Mexican kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. They allege that he used the money to finance his political campaigns and participated in electoral fraud in the 2013 and 2017 Honduran presidential elections.
“In exchange, drug traffickers in Honduras were allowed to operate with virtual impunity,” Garland said. “We allege that Hernández corrupted legitimate public institutions in the country – including parts of the national police, the army and the national Congress.”
Hernández was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa in February at the request of US authorities. They put him in shackles and paraded him in front of journalists, a spectacle that many Hondurans never imagined they would see.
The Honduran Supreme Court rejected his appeal against a judge’s decision in favor of extradition.
“Drug trafficking fuels violent crime and addiction, devastates families and wreaks havoc on communities,” Garland said. “The Department of Justice is committed to disrupting the entire ecosystem of drug networks that harm the American people, no matter how far or how high we have to go.”
Hernandez has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. In a video message posted Thursday, he said: “I am innocent; I have been and am being unfairly put on trial.”
My love @JuanOrlandoHI believe in you, I believe in your innocence, your family and your nation for which you fought so much will be waiting for you; we are convinced that #YOU WILL COME BACKOf course #YOU WILL COME BACK because you are #INNOCENT. We are with you and #God Almighty will make you #JUSTICE! pic.twitter.com/cDLXwqPp9W
– Ana García de Hernández (@anagarciacarias) April 21, 2022
He has said that he is the victim of the drug traffickers he extradited and that they are now lying to seek revenge.
Henry Osorto Canales, a retired National Police commissioner who is now an analyst, said that while the extradition was an embarrassment for Honduras, it was also a historic day.
“This is a start because it has begun with the largest political piece that the country had and logically the rest of the pieces are going to fall, at least those closest (to Hernández),” Osorto said.
US prosecutors have spent years building cases from low-level drug traffickers and local politicians to organized crime bosses who used their political connections and ties to drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico to move tons of cocaine into the United States. Many of them declared having made payments to Hernández or to one of his brothers, also a politician.
Hernandez’s brother, Tony Hernandez, a former congressman, was sentenced to life in prison in the same US court on the same charges.
Juan Orlando Hernández took office in January 2014 and held the presidency until this January, when Xiomara Castro was sworn in as his replacement.
Castro campaigned to eradicate corruption from Honduras, and Hernández was considered the biggest target.
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