A jury in New York on Friday found former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez guilty of trafficking hundreds of tonnes of cocaine into the US, enriching himself while protecting and abetting some of the region’s most infamous drug cartels.
A 12-member jury in federal district court returned its unanimous verdict midway through its second day of deliberations.
The 55-year-old Hernandez, who appeared to pray while awaiting the verdict, shook his head in disbelief as the jury foreman delivered guilty findings for each of three counts: conspiracy to import cocaine, illegally using and carrying machine guns, and possessing machine guns as part of a “cocaine-importation conspiracy.”
Photo: Reuters
Hernandez — who US federal prosecutors say turned his Central American country into a “narco-state” during his presidency from 2014 to 2022 — faces possible sentences of up to life imprisonment. Sentencing was scheduled for June 26.
During his presidency, Honduras received more than US$50 million in US anti-narcotics assistance, and tens of millions of dollars in security and military aid.
“I am innocent, tell the world,” Hernandez told friends, relatives and supporters — including three generals who testified on his behalf — as he was escorted from the courtroom. “I love you.”
He is accused of facilitating the smuggling of 500 tonnes of cocaine — mainly from Colombia and Venezuela — to the US via Honduras since 2004, long before his presidency.
Prosecutors said he had worked in particular with the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, at the time headed by infamous Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
“He paved a cocaine superhighway to the United States,” prosecutors said.
Hernandez used the drug money to enrich himself and finance his political campaign, and to commit electoral fraud in the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, they said.
Extradited to the US in April 2022, shortly after leaving office, he was accused of aiding drug smugglers — saving some from extradition, and even providing military and police protection for drug shipments — in return for millions of dollars in bribes.
Prosecutors say that while Hernandez enriched himself, the country was suffering from dire levels of poverty, crime and corruption.
“Today justice has been done,” human rights activist Lida Perdomo said, standing outside the New York courthouse, where dozens of boisterous Hondurans had gathered to await the verdict.
“We hope they sentence him to at least three life sentences ... to make him pay for all the damage he did to my country,” she said.
Hernandez denied wrongdoing, insisting that, far from being involved in trafficking, he was a regional leader in the fight against the cartels, and an ally of the US.
However, Assistant US Attorney Jacob Gutwillig said that Hernandez had lived a dual life: publicly promoting a crackdown on drug trafficking, and basking in praise from officials of former US president Donald Trump’s administration for his alleged help in the drug war — while behind the scenes he was “a drug dealer.”
Some of the most damning testimony against Hernandez came from former traffickers who secured reduced sentences from US authorities in exchange for their cooperation. They said they had “contributed” thousands of dollars to Hernandez’s first presidential campaign in exchange for his protection.
“We are going to shove drugs under their noses, and they won’t even notice,” one witness quoted Hernandez as saying of the Americans.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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