Honduran ex-president extradited to US

Federal drug trafficking and firearms charges have been filed against the ex-president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández in New York City.

He was shackled and driven to the Tegucigalpa airport by Honduran national police little over two months after he was taken into custody on February 15 after an extradition request from the United States Department of Justice.

Hernández, 53, stepped down from the presidency on January 27 after serving two terms. An investigation by New York’s southern district has accused him of collecting payments from dangerous drug traffickers in return for protection from law enforcement. He faces a cumulative mandatory sentence of 40 years in jail for drug trafficking conspiracy and two associated firearms counts.
He is anticipated to enter a not guilty plea when he is arraigned. According to him, the claims are fabricated by other criminals who are seeking to get out of their own sentences by working with him.

According to him, “This is payback from the cartel, it’s a premeditated conspiracy so that no government would fight them again,” the handwritten letter revealed last month said. “Hate and disinformation campaigns have played a role in the conspiracy. “Trial after trial shows that criminals lie and contradict themselves,” though.

He was once hailed as one of Washington’s most trusted allies in Latin America, receiving praise from Joe Biden and other US officials during his first term, but after his re-election in 2017 and the arrest of his brother, former legislator Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, on drug trafficking charges, the conservative president lost favour with Democrats. Tony Hernández was subsequently found guilty and given a life sentence.

The new president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, was elected by a landslide in November in a referendum on Hernández’s eight scandal-plagued years in government, and President Biden has subsequently welcomed the new leader. When Hernández was extradited to the US, it was an early test of the Castro administration’s vow to battle drug trafficking and corruption.

The US government’s case against Hernández grew more evident over the previous three years. His brother’s trial and two following trials, including that of the former national police head Juan Carlos Bonilla, accused Hernández as an unindicted co-conspirator.

He was dubbed “el Tigre” (the Tiger) because of his fearsome looks and reputation for violence, according to the criminal complaint against Bonilla. Bonilla is accused of protecting drug shipments and carrying out specific jobs for the Hernández brothers, including murdering them. After almost a year on the lam, he was apprehended on March 9th and is expected to be extradited to New York in May at the earliest.

Because of a Department of Justice policy not to charge sitting presidents, Hernández had been shielded from prosecution by US authorities. But within hours of his resignation, a warrant for his arrest was issued under secrecy, and a request for his extradition to Honduras was made three weeks later.

Honduran individuals accused of drug trafficking and other offences may now be extradited to the United States under a new constitutional amendment signed into law by Hernández’s National Congress in 2012. One of the most common arguments used by the defence was that someone who sought to get extradition via Congress would not be involved with drug dealers. This is the 30th Honduran who has been extradited to the United States.

Despite the fact that organised crime has permeated Latin American politics, Hernández is the region’s first former president to be extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges.

Following a December 1989 US military invasion, Panama’s former ruler Manuel Noriega was extradited to the United States to face cocaine trafficking charges. The case has a striking resemblance to that of Noriega. Noriega, like Hernández, was suspected of deceiving the DEA. He was found guilty and imprisoned for over two decades.

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