{"id":69387,"date":"2025-12-03T09:56:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/69387\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T09:56:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:56:30","slug":"honduras-ex-president-hernandez-may-regain-us-ally-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/69387\/","title":{"rendered":"Honduras ex-president Hern\u00e1ndez may regain US ally status"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) \u2014 Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who went from close U.S. ally in the war on drugs to a poster child for presidential corruption in Central America, is on the verge of becoming once again a friend of the United States with President Donald Trump\u2019s intention to pardon him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 57-year-old former two-term president was sentenced last year to 45 years in U.S. prison for helping drug traffickers to safely move hundreds of tons of cocaine north through his country to the U.S.<\/p>\n

At the start of his trial in February 2024, a U.S. prosecutor said Hern\u00e1ndez had even boasted at a meeting with drug dealers that \u201ctogether they were going to shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump criticized his prosecution<\/p>\n

But Trump criticized Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s prosecution, a wide-ranging case that also enveloped his brother during Trump\u2019s first term, saying Friday that people he respects told him Hern\u00e1ndez was \u201ctreated very harshly and unfairly.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday<\/a>, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va., ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and a Hern\u00e1ndez critic while he was still president, called Trump\u2019s decision to pardon Hern\u00e1ndez \u201cshocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the leader of one of the largest criminal enterprises that has ever been subject to a conviction in U.S. courts, and less than one year into his sentence, President Trump is pardoning him, suggesting that President Trump cares nothing about narcotrafficking,\u201d Kaine said on CBS\u2019 \u2018Face the Nation.\u2019 <\/p>\n

The latest reversal of Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s fortunes rivaled only his fall in early 2022 from recently former president to shackled prisoner bound for a U.S. courtroom.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez was suddenly thrust into Honduras\u2019 national election<\/a> where voters are electing a new president, Congress and hundreds of local positions on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Had support of first Trump administration<\/p>\n

While president from 2014 until January 2022, Hern\u00e1ndez had the support of U.S. officials waging the war on drugs and some diplomats who did not see a better option. But less than three weeks out of office, no longer of use to the U.S. government, prosecutors moved for his extradition and the chance to make him an example in a region wracked by corruption.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez had enjoyed support from the first Trump administration when the leaders\u2019 terms overlapped, currying favor with actions like moving Honduras\u2019 embassy<\/a> in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

But when the Biden administration entered in January 2021, talk turned to corruption in Central America as an important force driving emigration to the United States.<\/p>\n

Days after Hern\u00e1ndez left office in January 2022 \u2013 and still a week before his arrest in Honduras — the U.S. State Department publicized that it had added Hern\u00e1ndez to its list of corrupt and undemocratic actors in July 2021.<\/p>\n

Sentenced to 45 years in prison<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez was arrested at the request of the United States in February 2022, weeks after handing over power to current President Xiomara Castro.<\/p>\n

Two years later, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in a New York federal courtroom for taking bribes from drug traffickers so they could safely move some 400 tons of cocaine north through Honduras to the United States.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez maintained throughout that he was innocent and the victim of revenge by drug traffickers he had helped extradite to the United States.<\/p>\n

But prosecutors said Hern\u00e1ndez had used Honduras\u2019 military and police to shepherd drug shipments through the country, earning him millions of dollars that fueled his political rise from rural congressman to the presidency.<\/p>\n

Judge P. Kevin Castel called him a \u201ctwo-faced politician hungry for power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trial witnesses included traffickers who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders. They said Hern\u00e1ndez was an enthusiastic protector of some of the world\u2019s most powerful cocaine dealers, including notorious Mexican drug lord Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n, who is serving a life prison term in the U.S.<\/p>\n

$1 million bribe to Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s brother<\/p>\n

U.S. prosecutors said Guzm\u00e1n had paid a $1 million bribe to Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s brother, Juan Antonio \u201cTony\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez, a former Honduran congressman who was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison in 2021 in New York for his own conviction on drug charges.<\/p>\n

They repeatedly implicated the Honduran president during his brother\u2019s 2019 drug trafficking trial, alleging that his political rise was fueled by drug profits.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez, a businessman and former lawmaker, took office in January 2014 and built support largely on a drop in violence, which had reached breathtaking levels. Later, a friendly Supreme Court opened the door to his re-election<\/a>, allowing Hern\u00e1ndez to seek a second term, which he won in an election plagued by irregularities.<\/p>\n

Honduras was described as a narco-state and a prosecutor on the brother\u2019s case characterized it as \u201cstate-sponsored drug trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castel described the number of killings linked to the drug trade during Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s political career as \u201cstaggering,\u201d saying one drug trafficking witness admitted at the trial that he aided 56 killings and another said he was involved in 78 murders before he began cooperating with U.S. authorities.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Trump announced his intention to pardon the ex-president, Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s wife Ana Garc\u00eda and their adult children gathered on the steps of their home in Tegucigalpa.<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda thanked Trump, saying that Trump had corrected an injustice, maintaining that Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s prosecution was a coordinated plot by drug traffickers and the \u201cradical left\u201d to seek revenge against the former president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) \u2014 Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who went from close U.S. ally in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[20368,1108,409,39817,9554,477,1109,14690,40300,38303,3446,38354,1598,1105,139,141,140,38356,99,40299,39821,38655,10645,38352],"class_list":["post-69387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-central-america","tag-criminal-punishment","tag-donald-trump","tag-drug-crimes","tag-extradition","tag-general-news","tag-homicide","tag-honduras","tag-juan-antonio-hernndez","tag-juan-orlando-hernandez","tag-latin-america","tag-law-and-order","tag-law-enforcement","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-pardons-and-commutations","tag-politics","tag-tim-kaine","tag-united-states-government","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world-news","tag-xiomara-castro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}