Former Honduran president pardoned by Trump released from US prison
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Honduras’ former president Juan Orlando Hernandez was found guilty in 2024 of conspiring to import 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – A former Honduran president convicted of helping to smuggle 400 tonnes of cocaine into the United States has left prison after being pardoned by US President Donald Trump, his wife said on Dec 2.
Juan Orlando Hernandez was released from a West Virginia prison on Dec 1 and was “once again a free man”, his wife announced on social media.
The US Bureau of Prisons website showed the release of a man matching Hernandez’s name and age.
Mr Trump’s controversial pardon came as the US president is simultaneously ordering the bombing of boats in the Caribbean
Hernandez’s pardon came as a surprise, given Mr Trump has made an ostensible war against Latin American drug trafficking a centrepiece in his turbulent second term.
Major US military forces are deployed in the southern Caribbean to pressure Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro, whom the Trump administration has designated as part of a drug cartel.
US forces are regularly blowing up small boats alleged to be carrying drugs, despite international experts saying the strikes are likely illegal.
Mr Trump is also deeply involved in the Honduran election
Mr Trump is backing right-wing candidate Nasry Asfura, who currently leads by just 515 votes. The US president warned late on Dec 2 there would be “hell to pay” if Honduras tries “to change the results”.
Mr Rixi Moncada, the ruling party candidate in the Nov 30 election who is trailing far behind her right-wing rivals, accused Mr Trump of “interventionist” meddling.
Supporters of Honduras’ ruling party candidate Rixi Moncada accuse US President Donald Trump of “interventionist” meddling.
PHOTO: REUTERS
‘Doesn’t make any sense’
Hernandez, who is from the same party as Mr Asfura, led the Central American nation from 2014 to 2022.
He was accused by US prosecutors of facilitating the import of around 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US. He was extradited just weeks after leaving office, convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Mr Trump said last week Hernandez “has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly”.
Hernandez’s wife, Mrs Ana Garcia de Hernandez, posted on social media that the release on Dec 1 “was a day we will never forget”.
“After almost four years of pain, waiting and difficult trials, my husband Juan Orlando Hernandez is once again a free man, thanks to the presidential pardon granted by President Donald Trump.”
The pardon came under fire from US lawmakers.
“Trump is illegally blowing up boats in the Caribbean, supposedly to stop drugs coming into the US. Yet, he pardons the former president of Honduras who was convicted of sending cocaine to the US,” Senator Ed Markey posted on X.
“It doesn’t make any sense. Whatever Trump is doing in Venezuela, it’s not about drugs.”
Senator Bill Cassidy, from Mr Trump’s Republican Party, also slammed Mr Trump’s move.
“Why would we pardon this guy and then go after Maduro for running drugs into the United States?” he asked on X.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Mr Trump, depicting Hernandez as the victim of prosecutorial overreach under former president Joe Biden.
“He was opposed to the values of the previous administration, and they charged him because he was president of Honduras,” Ms Leavitt said. AFP
