After a trial that took just over two weeks, the former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022) was found guilty this Friday, March 8, of drug trafficking and weapons charges by a New York jury.
Hernández, who is now waiting for Judge Kevin Castel to hand down his sentence, will thus become the highest-ranking Latin American leader convicted of drug trafficking after the case of Panamanian Manuel Antonio Noriega, sentenced in 1992 in a Florida court to 40 years in prison. for his connections with the Colombian Medellín cartel.
Hernández listened stoically to the sentence, without any gesture, but when he got up from his chair and left the room, he turned to the public, looked at his two sisters-in-law – his wife did not travel because the US had denied him a visa – and told them. said: “I’m innocent. I love you very much, tell the world.”
Fifty Hondurans who were outside the court immediately began to celebrate the verdict, which could cost Hernández several life sentences.
The charge of “conspiring to import cocaine” carries a sentence of between 10 years and life; “using and carrying machine guns and other destructive devices” to introduce drugs is punishable between 30 years and life; and “conspiring to use and carry machine guns” to import drugs also has a maximum penalty of life.
Judge Kevin Castel has thus retained the three charges filed against him by the Prosecutor’s Office on behalf of the United States Government, which has repeatedly said that Hernández “engaged in a corrupt and violent drug trafficking conspiracy to facilitate the importation of hundreds of thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the United States.”
The Prosecutor’s Office maintained that Hernández’s drug trafficking activity is not limited to his two presidential terms, but to his entire political career since at least 2004, a time in which he used his public positions, “as well as the Police and the Army” to support to drug trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico and elsewhere.
Although during the trial no conclusive evidence has been seen – in the form of videos, audios or intercepted communications – that incriminates Hernández, 55, the jury has been convinced by the testimonies provided by notorious drug traffickers who have testified against him after having declared guilty before the American Justice, presumably in search of prison benefits.
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