Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was found guilty on Friday in New York of conspiring with drug traffickers and leveraging his military and national police force to facilitate the unimpeded flow of tons of cocaine into the United States.
The verdict was delivered by the jury at a federal court following a two-week trial, garnering significant attention in his native country.
Hernández, aged 55, served two terms as the leader of the Central American nation with a population of roughly 10 million. He was apprehended at his residence in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, three months after concluding his tenure in 2022 and was subsequently extradited to the US in April of that same year.
US prosecutors alleged that Hernández collaborated with drug traffickers dating back to 2004, claiming that he accepted millions of dollars in bribes as he ascended from a rural congressman to the presidency of the National Congress and ultimately to the highest office in the country.
During the trial, Hernández admitted that drug money had been distributed to nearly all political parties in Honduras, but he vehemently denied personally accepting any bribes.
He highlighted his visits to the White House and meetings with US presidents, portraying himself as a staunch advocate in the fight against drug trafficking who collaborated closely with the US to stem the influx of drugs into the country.
He recounted an instance where the FBI warned him of a drug cartel’s plot to assassinate him.
Hernández countered the accusations by alleging that his accusers fabricated claims against him in hopes of receiving leniency for their own crimes.
“They all have motivation to lie, and they are professional liars,” Hernández asserted.
However, the prosecution ridiculed Hernández, pointing out the irony in his assertion that he was the lone honest politician in Honduras.
During Wednesday’s closing arguments, Assistant US Attorney Jacob Gutwillig asserted to the jury that Hernández, a corrupt figure, “paved a cocaine superhighway to the United States.”
In contrast, defense attorney Renato Stabile maintained that his client “has been wrongfully charged,” advocating for an acquittal.
Trial witnesses included traffickers who confessed to numerous murders and implicated Hernández as a fervent protector of some of the world’s most influential cocaine traffickers, including the infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, currently serving a life sentence in the US.
Throughout the trial, Hernández, attired in a suit, appeared mostly impassive as he testified through an interpreter, consistently denying allegations of bribery or promises to shield traffickers from extradition to the US.
Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, former Honduran congressman and brother of Juan Orlando Hernández, received a life sentence in 2021 in a Manhattan federal court for his own conviction on drug charges.
