(CMR) Former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández (55), was convicted of cocaine trafficking in New York on Friday following a two-week trial.
Hernández was accused of conspiring with drug traffickers and using his military and national police force to enable tons of cocaine to make it unhindered into the United States.
A jury found Hernández guilty on three counts of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years in prison.
During the two-week trial, witnesses described bribes paid to Hernández’s political campaigns, including $1m from the notorious former leader of the Sinaloa cartel Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.
During closing arguments on Wednesday, assistant US attorney Jacob Gutwillig told the court that Hernández, who served as president for two consecutive terms from 2014 to 2022, “paved a cocaine superhighway to the United States.”
Hernández took the stand in his defense, highlighting his role in passing anti-crime legislation and cooperating with the United States on counternarcotics measures.
However, prosecutors said that while Hernández went after some drug traffickers, he protected others, including his brother, former legislator Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, who was convicted of drug trafficking in 2019.
The conviction of the former president marks a major victory for the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s strategy of targeting public officials who support traffickers but also raises questions about the US government’s past collaboration with the former president. Hernández was considered a top US ally in Central America, particularly by the Trump administration.
Even after he was implicated in his brother’s October 2019 drug-trafficking trial, Trump, then the president, praised Hernández for his help with stopping drugs.
Hernández was arrested on 15 February 2022, just weeks after completing his second presidential term. Two months later, he was extradited to the United States.
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