By Fiona Nanna, ForeMedia News

5 minutes read. Updated 3:00PM GMT Thurs, 27, 2024

Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison by a US court for drug-related crimes. Hernández, who served as president from 2014 to 2022, was convicted in March of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and possessing “destructive devices” such as machine guns.

Hernández’s conviction follows extensive investigations and legal proceedings. Prosecutors in New York presented evidence that he operated Honduras as a “narco-state,” accepting millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers. These bribes allegedly protected traffickers from the law, enabling the large-scale smuggling of cocaine into the United States.

“He paved a cocaine superhighway to the United States, protected by machine guns,” prosecutors stated in their closing arguments. Along with his prison sentence, Hernández was fined $8 million.

Despite his conviction, Hernández maintains his innocence. “I am innocent,” he declared at his sentencing hearing. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.” However, the judge described him as a “two-faced politician hungry for power,” highlighting the gravity of his crimes.

Since his extradition to the US, Hernández has been detained in a Brooklyn jail. Last month, a Manhattan judge denied his request for a retrial. His lawyers had argued that incorrect testimony from a law enforcement agent had tainted the trial, but the judge found this error “immaterial.”

“Hernandez’s conviction was based on the testimony of numerous witnesses whose testimony was corroborated by phone records and a recovered drug ledger,” Judge Kevin Castel wrote.

As president, Hernández initially positioned himself as a tough-on-crime candidate, vowing to combat drug trafficking. However, prosecutors revealed that he was involved with drug traffickers long before his presidency. They accused him of helping smuggle around 500 tonnes of cocaine to the US, accepting millions in bribes from traffickers to facilitate this process.

His political career was also tainted by allegations of using drug money to bribe officials and manipulate presidential elections in 2013 and 2017. Hernández’s defense argued that witnesses against him were motivated by self-interest, and he claimed to be a victim of a vendetta by organized crime and political adversaries.

Despite his criminal activities, Hernández was once seen as a US ally. The United States provided Honduras with over $50 million in anti-narcotics assistance and additional security and military aid. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump praised Hernández for his cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking.

However, Hernández’s ties to drug traffickers eventually surfaced, leading to his downfall. His conviction marks a significant moment in the fight against drug trafficking in Latin America.

Hernández is not the first Latin American leader to be convicted of drug-related crimes in the US. Panama’s Manuel Noriega was convicted in 1992, and Guatemala’s Alfonso Portillo was convicted of money laundering in 2014. These cases highlight the ongoing challenges of drug trafficking and corruption in the region.

Hernández’s brother, former Honduran congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, was also convicted of drug charges by the same Manhattan court and is serving a life sentence.

As Hernández prepares to appeal his conviction, his case underscores the complex and often murky relationship between politics and drug trafficking in Latin America. For more details on the ongoing fight against drug trafficking in Central America, visit our detailed report on the current state of narco-politics and follow updates on Twitter using the hashtag #NarcoPolitics.

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