Juan Orlando Hernández: former Honduran president sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking

CNN
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Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $8 million by a US judge for drug trafficking crimes.

He has previously denied the accusations against him and, during his sentencing on Wednesday, insisted he was innocent and had been “wrongly and unjustly accused”.

In March, a New York jury found Hernandez guilty of three drug charges after a two-week trial in Manhattan federal court. He denied the accusations.

He was extradited from Honduras after the U.S. Department of Justice filed three drug and firearms charges against him in 2022.

Prosecutors had accused Hernández, 55, of conspiring with drug cartels during his tenure as they transported more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras to the United States.

In exchange, prosecutors said, Hernández received millions of dollars in bribes that he used to fuel his rise in Honduran politics.

Hernández served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022. During his years in office, he “protected and enriched drug traffickers in his inner circle,” the Justice Department said, citing his use of executive power to support extraditions to the United States of certain drugs. traffickers “who threatened his hold on power” while “promising drug traffickers who paid him and followed his instructions to stay in Honduras.”

Prosecutors also said members of the conspiracy in which Hernández participated relied on the Honduran National Police to protect cocaine shipments as they moved through the country.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernández “abused his position as president of Honduras to run the country as a narco-state where violent drug traffickers were allowed to operate freely.” impunity, and where the people of Honduras and the United States were forced to suffer the consequences.