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Honduras ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez extradited to US for drug trafficking trial

Honduras ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez extradited to United States for drug trafficking trial

TEGUCIGALPA: Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez was extradited to the United States Thursday to stand trial for apparently assisting the smuggling of numerous lots of cocaine to America.
The 53-year-old, whose 2014-2022 stint as president was pestered by claims of corruption, dangers spending the rest of his life in prison if founded guilty.
AFP saw Hernandez’s departure from an air force base in Tegucigalpa on a Drug Enforcement Administration aircraft destined for the United States.
Hernandez is accused of having actually facilitated the smuggling of some 500 lots of drug– primarily from Colombia and Venezuela– to the United States by means of Honduras because 2004, beginning long prior to his presidency.
In turn, he presumably received “millions of dollars in allurements … from several narcotrafficking companies in Honduras, Mexico and other places,” according to a United States Embassy file.
Not even 3 weeks after leaving office following elections, a warrant was issued for Hernandez’s arrest at Washington’s request, and he gave up to police on February 15.
He was then held at a cops special forces jail in the capital Tegucigalpa.
Hernandez portrayed himself as an ally of the United States war on drugs throughout his tenure, helping to extradite a number of narcotics kingpins.
Washington even supported his re-election in 2017 in spite of a constitutional one-term limitation and allegations of voting scams.
However a number of drug traffickers because informed US prosecutors they had actually paid kickbacks to the president’s inner circle, and by the time he left workplace, United States drug enforcers were prepared to move against Hernandez.
US prosecutors state the previous president turned Honduras into a “narco-state” by involving the military, cops and civilians in drug trafficking to the United States.
A supposed Hernandez associate, Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, was sentenced in the United States in February to life in prison and a fine of $151.7 million for smuggling tons of drug with the ex-president’s aid, according to district attorneys.
And his sibling, ex-congressman Tony Hernandez, was offered a life sentence in the United States in March 2021 for drug trafficking crimes in which Juan Orlando Hernandez was stated to have actually been a co-conspirator.
This month, a judge licensed the extradition to the United States of former nationwide authorities chief Juan Carlos Bonilla, implicated of running drug trafficking operations for Hernandez.
The previous president denies the accusations against him.
Hernandez left office on January 27 when leftist Xiomara Castro ended up being president of this country, which has a hardship rate of at least 60 percent amongst its 10 million inhabitants.
On March 28, the 15-member Supreme Court of Honduras– all judges appointed throughout Hernandez’s very first term– ratified his extradition.
In a declaration, the former president’s household objected his “innocence” and said he was a “victim of revenge by the drug traffickers he himself had actually extradited or required to run away to the United States.”
These had told lies about Hernandez in a bid to have their own sentences minimized, the relatives said.

Published at Thu, 21 Apr 2022 21:19:40 +0000

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