Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH) (2014-2022) was sentenced this Wednesday, June 26 to 45 years in jail and 5 extra years of supervised launch by a New York court docket for numerous crimes associated to drug trafficking and using weaponsthereby escaping the life sentence requested by the Prosecutor’s Workplace.
Hernández arrived on the courtroom the place he heard his sentence wearing a beige shirt and holding a cane, a gesture that generated exclamations of shock among the many Honduran public, who watched the trial on a tv in one of many courtrooms. .
Initially of his speech – which he devoted to the US and Honduras – JOH accepted his destiny and acknowledged that “the most definitely factor is that I will probably be imprisoned for all times”though he reaffirmed his innocence and repeated that he has been judged “unfairly and improperly.”
The 55-year-old former Honduran president centered on defending himself towards the accusations of the prosecution – which is asking for all times imprisonment for him – regardless of Decide Kevin Castel having beforehand warned him that this was not a possibility to argue his innocence.
He additionally burdened to the decide that there are paperwork or actions that neither he nor the jury are conscious of, reminiscent of a number of conferences he held with the US authorities throughout his tenure as president of Honduras to battle drug trafficking.
The previous Honduran president additionally reiterated that he didn’t know drug trafficker Giovanni Fuentes, although minutes earlier the decide had accused him of giving false testimony when he mentioned through the judicial course of that he didn’t know who Fuentes was.
Hernández additionally highlighted, in reference to the confiscation of US$15 million in property and the fee of a effective of US$10 million requested by the decide, that the property of his whole household “by no means exceeded 3 million {dollars},” and warranted that now They don’t have anything as a result of the Authorities of Honduras “took the whole lot from us.”
And he burdened that “if not at present, the reality will come to gentle tomorrow, and can do quite a lot of injury to this nation and the alliance of nations that battle towards drug trafficking.”
Hernández, newest in an extended listing of Latin People convicted in US courts.
The previous president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced this Wednesday, June 26, to 45 years in jail and 5 years of supervised launch for the primary crime of drug trafficking, He’s the newest in an extended line of Latin American political leaders to finish their days in a US court docket or jail. -or tried of their nation following being extradited by the United States- for crimes associated to medication or corruption.
The primary high-level Latin American tried within the US was Manuel Antonio Noriega – dictator of Panama between 1983 and 1989 -, who in 1992 was sentenced to 40 years in jail, and following him got here former rulers of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela. .
This listing doesn’t embody the quite a few civilian ‘capos’, with out political tasks, who additionally ended up on trial in that North American nation, such because the Mexican Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán or the Colombian Dairo Antonio Úsuga, ‘Otoniel’, to call probably the most acquaintances.
Panama
- Manuel Antonio Noriega, a navy man and “strongman” of Panama between 1983 and 1989. He was tried in Miami and sentenced to 40 years, of which he spent 17 in a Florida jail, and later accomplished his sentence in France and in his nation.
- Ricardo Martinelli, former president of the Republic (2009-2014) was arrested within the US and extradited to Panama in 2017 the place he was imprisoned. Tried and declared “not responsible” in 2019 for the ‘Escuchas’ case, the sentence was annulled the next yr and the trial was ordered to be repeated in 2021 following which he was acquitted.
In 2023 he was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months in jail and a effective of $19.2 million for the ‘New Enterprise’ case. The next yr, following the conviction was declared last, he took refuge within the Nicaraguan Embassy, a rustic that granted him asylum, though a Panamanian court docket ordered his preventive detention.
- The sons of the previous, Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelli, have been sentenced in Might 2022 in the US to 3 years in jail and two years of supervised launch, in addition to a effective of US$250,000 following the earlier December. declared responsible earlier than a New York court docket for laundering $28 million in a plot associated to the Brazilian development firm Odebrecht.
Each reached an settlement with the US authorities for the fee of US$19 million. They have been launched for good conduct on January 25, 2023, and that very same day they have been deported to Panama.
Honduras
Juan Orlando Hernández, former president of Honduras (2014-22), was extradited to the US on April 21, 2022, days following his presidential substitute. He was accused of utilizing cash from Mexican drug trafficker ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán to commit electoral fraud in two elections in change for being a part of a conspiracy to move greater than 500 tons of cocaine to the US. He was booked into the federal jail in Brooklyn.
The jury trial started on February 20, 2024, and he was discovered responsible on March 8 of three drug trafficking and weapons fees, ending on Wednesday along with his last sentence of 45 years in jail and 5 years on probation.
Guatemala
President Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) was imprisoned in the US, the place he served a 70-month sentence for cash laundering following being extradited in 2013.
On March 18 of that yr, he pleaded responsible to conspiracy to launder cash from bribes of $2.5 million from the Taiwanese authorities and on Might 22 he was sentenced to 5 years and ten months in jail and ordered to repay the cash obtained.
He was launched from jail on 25 February 2015 and returned to his nation.
Mexico
- Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Safety of Mexico (2006-2012) and accused in 2018 of receiving bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in Dallas in December 2019, when he was charged with three counts of conspiring to site visitors cocaine to USA and for false testimonies.
His trial passed off between January and February 2023. The jury discovered him responsible of drug trafficking and corruption on February 21. The sentencing has been postponed 4 occasions and is now anticipated on October 9, 2024.
Venezuela
- Cliver Alcalá Cordones, a former Venezuelan Military basic, turned himself in to DEA brokers in Colombia on March 27, 2020, a day following the U.S. authorities filed narcoterrorism fees towards Maduro and others, together with himself. The U.S. was providing a $10 million reward.
He pleaded ‘not responsible’ to the fees introduced towards him by a New York decide. In mid-2023 he negotiated an settlement with the Prosecutor’s Workplace in change for favorable remedy.
On February 27, 2024, a pre-sentence listening to started in New York, accused of six counts of narcoterrorism, supporting terrorism, cocaine smuggling and weapons possession. On April 8, he was sentenced to greater than 21 years in jail for offering materials and firearms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for drug trafficking functions.
Peru
- The case of President Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) is completely different from the earlier ones as a result of he has not been tried in the US, nevertheless it was the US that extradited him to his nation, the place he was tried there for receiving bribes for greater than US$30 million from the Brazilian firm Odebrecht.
It was in February 2023 when the US Division of State granted his extradition and in April of that yr he was tried in Peru and entered the Barbadillo jail (Lima) to serve preventive detention for a interval of 18 months.
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