{"id":165457,"date":"2025-12-03T06:21:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/165457\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T06:21:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:21:16","slug":"trump-frees-ex-honduran-president-from-prison-as-country-awaits-knife-edge-election-result-honduras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/165457\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump frees ex-Honduran president from prison as country awaits knife-edge election result | Honduras"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former president of Honduras who was convicted of drug trafficking has walked free from a US prison after receiving a pardon from Donald Trump<\/a>, as the country\u2019s presidential election remained on a knife edge with the US-backed candidate leading by 515 votes.<\/p>\n

Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for allegedly creating \u201ca cocaine superhighway to the United States\u201d, was released from a West Virginia prison after Trump\u2019s intervention, Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s wife confirmed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It came as Trump steps up his \u201cwar on drugs\u201d with airstrikes on alleged traffickers in the Caribbean, and a massive US naval force off the coast of Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The pardon was issued amid extraordinary levels of US interference in the Honduran election. Trump threw his support behind Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s ally Nasry \u201cTito\u201d Asfura, saying Washington\u2019s support for the country was conditional on an Asfura victory.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Trump again intervened, alleging without evidence that electoral officials were \u201ctrying to change\u201d the result of Sunday\u2019s vote and said: \u201cIf they do, there will be hell to pay!\u201d<\/p>\n

The virtual vote count had been slow and unstable before it was interrupted at about midday on Monday. The electoral council said a technical problem was to blame and insisted the manual count was continuing.<\/p>\n

When the release of results was suspended, Asfura was on 39.91%, closely followed by Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal party on 39.89%. Rixi Moncada, the candidate for the leftwing ruling party, was trailing in a distant third place with 19.16% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Trump has thrown his support behind Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s ally Nasry \u2018Tito\u2019 Asfura. Photograph: Mois\u00e9s Castillo\/AP<\/p>\n

As election officials pleaded for patience, Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s wife, Ana Garc\u00eda de Hern\u00e1ndez, disclosed that the former president had been released from a US prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod is faithful and never fails! Yesterday, Monday 1 December 2025, we lived a day we will never forget. After almost four years of pain, waiting and difficult trials, my husband, Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, became a free man AGAIN, thanks to the presidential pardon granted by President Donald Trump,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Axios reported that in a letter to Trump in October, Hern\u00e1ndez had claimed that he had been \u201ctargeted by the Biden-Harris administration not for any wrongdoing, but for political reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

US authorities had investigated Hern\u00e1ndez for years before he was indicted; his brother, Juan Antonio \u201cTony\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez, was arrested in 2018 and convicted in 2019, during Trump\u2019s first term<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Manhattan prosecutors accused the former president of allegedly receiving $1m from the former Mexican cartel kingpin Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n in 2013 for his first presidential campaign, and alleged that, under Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s government, Honduras<\/a> served as a crucial transit point for cocaine coming from South American countries including Colombia and Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez had been held at the federal Hazelton prison in West Virginia and is now in a \u201csafe place\u201d, according to his wife.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s pardon has baffled many observers, who have questioned why the US president has used his antinarcotics campaign to justify overthrowing Venezuela\u2019s dictator, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, while simultaneously freeing a man convicted of such crimes.<\/p>\n

In Honduras, the pardon has been viewed as yet another attempt by the US president to interfere in the election.<\/p>\n

Honduras\u2019s deputy foreign minister, Gerardo Torres Zelaya, posted<\/a> that the US \u201cgot involved in our elections\u201d and \u201cfreed the worst narco and criminal in our history\u201d.<\/p>\n

Salvador Nasralla about to cast his vote on 30 November along with his wife, Iroshka Elvir. Photograph: Jos\u00e9 Cabezas\/Reuters<\/p>\n

During the campaign, Moncada accused Trump of \u201cinterventionism\u201d and of \u201cimperial, direct foreign interference\u201d in the electoral process. She served as finance minister under the current president, Xiomara Castro, who could not run again because presidential mandates are limited to a single term.<\/p>\n

Before the election, Trump had claimed Moncada was a communist and that her victory would hand the country to \u201cMaduro and his narco-terrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nasralla, an experienced politician and TV host who served as Castro\u2019s vice-president before breaking away to launch his own presidential attempt, was labelled by Trump as a \u201cborderline communist\u201d who was running only to split the vote between Moncada and Asfura. Gustavo Ir\u00edas, a co-founder and executive director of Honduras\u2019s Centre of Study for Democracy, said Trump\u2019s \u201cinterference definitely influenced the outcome\u201d of the elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose messages from Trump validated a political party that was practically unable to win because of its long history of links to drug trafficking and corruption \u2013 and that suffered a massive defeat in 2021,\u201d he said, referring to Castro\u2019s wide victory over Asfura in the last presidential election.<\/p>\n

Newspapers with cover stories on the preliminary results of the general election, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Photograph: Jos\u00e9 Cabezas\/Reuters<\/p>\n

A similar strategy was adopted by the US president in October during Argentina\u2019s midterm elections<\/a>, when Trump announced a $40bn bailout conditional on the victory of the far-right president Javier Milei\u2019s party.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo people went to vote here under pressure, under fear,\u201d Ir\u00edas said.<\/p>\n

The electoral council has up to 30 days to announce the result.<\/p>\n

For many, the suspension of the vote counts has revived traumatic memories of the 2017 election, when Hern\u00e1ndez ran for a second term, after a court struck down a constitutional ban on re-election.<\/p>\n

Early results showed Nasralla ahead, but after a \u201cblackout\u201d \u2013 marked by\u00a0violent protests\u00a0in which dozens were killed<\/a> \u2013 Hern\u00e1ndez emerged ahead and, a week after the election, was recognised by the US as the winner.<\/p>\n

Now, after a campaign in which virtually all the candidates alleged electoral fraud, all three contenders have voiced concern over the delay.\u201cLet\u2019s not keep the country waiting on edge,\u201d said Asfura.<\/p>\n

Ir\u00edas said that official results could take weeks to be finalised and that, given everything unfolding in this election, \u201cwe are going to see a continuation of governments with low legitimacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the system does not return with completely different figures from those with which the count was halted, as happened in 2017, because that could open up a new and very serious crisis,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former president of Honduras who was convicted of drug trafficking has walked free from a US prison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-165457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}