A court docket in New York on Wednesday sentenced former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez to 45 years in jail after he was convicted of trafficking a whole lot of tons of cocaine into america.
Anti-Hernandez protesters gathered outdoors the Manhattan courthouse forward of sentencing brandishing placards decrying the previous head of state’s crimes with one declaring “Narco authorities — makes the folks to migrate.”
“The function of Mr Hernandez was to make use of his political energy as president of Congress and president of Honduras to restrict the dangers of drug traffickers in alternate of cash,” stated Decide Kevin Castel.
He stated Hernandez offered police and navy assist and helped to ship 400 tons of medicine — value $10 billion at market costs — to america.
The sentence, which additionally included an $8 million wonderful, was lower than the life imprisonment that prosecutors had sought — though Hernandez’s age, 55, means he might die behind bars.
“He’s going to pursue each single potential authorized treatment that he can pursue,” Hernandez’s lawyer Renato Stabile advised reporters outdoors court docket.
Hernandez, who US federal prosecutors stated turned his Central American nation right into a “narco-state” throughout his presidency from 2014 to 2022, has beforehand indicated by his authorized group he would attraction his conviction.
He was convicted in March of getting facilitated the smuggling of a whole lot of tons of cocaine — primarily from Colombia and Venezuela — to america by way of Honduras since 2004, beginning lengthy earlier than his presidency.
Hernandez used the drug cash to complement himself and finance his political marketing campaign, and commit electoral fraud within the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, prosecutors stated.
He had introduced himself as a champion of the warfare on medicine and was initially seen by Washington as an ally within the combat.
In 2017, america was one of many first nations to acknowledge his re-election, whereas the opposition denounced fraud towards a backdrop of violent protests that left some 30 folks lifeless.
He was extradited to america in 2022 utilizing a regulation he had himself helped to cross as Congress president underneath strain from Washington, accused of aiding drug smugglers in return for thousands and thousands of {dollars} in bribes.
The autumn of Hernandez, who is understood in his nation as “JOH,” was abrupt.
No sooner had he handed over energy to the brand new left-wing president Xiomara Castro, the outgoing chief was shackled and paraded in entrance of journalists.
Hernandez follows within the footsteps of different former Latin American heads of state convicted in america, together with Panama’s Manuel Noriega in 1992 and Guatemala’s Alfonso Portillo in 2014.
The quick, athletic chief was identified for his navy haircut, having served as an officer earlier than coaching as a lawyer, finishing a masters diploma in New York in 1995.
His authorized woes started in earnest in 2018 when his brother, Juan Antonio Hernandez, was arrested in Miami and sentenced in March 2021 to life imprisonment for “large-scale” drug trafficking.
After his arrest in Honduras in February 2022, Hernandez stated he was a sufferer of “revenge” by the drug lords, lots of whom testified towards him in New York.
