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
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS