The United States justice system this Wednesday sentenced the former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández to 45 years in prison, after being found guilty of drug trafficking. drugs and weapons on March 8.
In a hearing in New York, Judge Kevin Castel also indicated that Hernández, 55 years old and who was president in two consecutive terms from 2014 to 2022, must pay $8 million in fines and serve 5 years of supervised release at the end. of his prison sentence.
“Juan Orlando Hernández’s role was to use his political power as president of Congress and as president of Honduras to limit the risk of drug traffickers in exchange for money“said the judge when reading the sentence.
“I am innocent and I was unfairly and improperly accused“said the president, who arrived at the hearing room walking with a cane because he had an accident playing soccer, according to his lawyer Renato Stabile.
Hernández listened standing to the sentence of Judge Castel, who was very harsh in his argument, although he imposed practically the minimum sentence for the three charges for which he was found guilty by a popular jury on March 8.
“Narco-State”
A faithful collaborator of the government of Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021), Hernández even boasted of Washington’s praise for his government’s work in the fight against drug trafficking.
But the New York prosecutor’s office accused him of creating a “narco-state” and turning Honduras into a “super highway” through which a good part of the drugs from Colombia passed.
Between 2004 and 2022 – from his positions as deputy, president of Congress and then president of the Republic – Hernández participated in and protected a network that sent more than 400 tons of cocaine to the United States, the prosecutor’s office said this Wednesday.
In exchange, he would have received millions of dollars from drug cartels, including Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán, sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States.
Extradited in April 2022 to the United States, three months after handing over the presidency to his successor, the leftist Xiomara Castro, Hernández would have been the author of the famous phrase: “We are going to shove drugs under the faces of the gringos and they are not going to even notice.”, according to a witness in a trial.
Others accused in the same case, including his brother Tony Hernández or his close collaborator Geovanny Fuentes, have already been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Also in the same case, former Honduran police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla, known as “El Tigre”, and police officer Mauricio Hernández Pineda, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, avoiding sitting in the dock with the former president.
Since 2014, fifty Hondurans accused of drug trafficking have been extradited or voluntarily surrendered to United States justice.
Source: Gestion
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