TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for his role in a drug trafficking operation that moved hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States, has been released from U.S. federal prison at Hazelton, West Virginia Tuesday, after a pardon from President Donald Trump.
His wife Ana García thanked Trump for pardoning Hernández via the social platform X early Tuesday. “After almost four years of pain, of waiting and difficult challenges, my husband Juan Orlando Hernández RETURNED to being a free man, thanks to the presidential pardon granted by President Donald Trump,” García’s post said. She included a picture of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons listing for Hernández indicating his release.
Trump was asked Sunday why he pardoned Hernández by reporters traveling with him on Air Force One. “I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras,” Trump said. “They basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. And they said it was a Biden administration set-up,” Trump said. “And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.”
But one attorney for Juan Orlando Hernandez’s statement of thanks to Trump for the pardon also forecasting a “triumphant return to Honduras” for JOH there does not reflect the legal web awaiting JOH in Honduras. Honduras Attorney General Johel Zelaya said via X that his office was obligated to seek justice and put an end to impunity. He did not specify what charges Hernández could face in Honduras. There were various corruption-related investigations of his administration across two terms in office that did not lead to charges against him. Castro, who oversaw Hernández’s arrest and extradition to the U.S., will remain in office until January.
Hernández was arrested at the request of the United States in February 2022, weeks after current President Xiomara Castro took office. Two years later, Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison in a New York federal courtroom for taking bribes from drug traffickers so they could safely move some 400 tons (360 metric tons) of cocaine north through Honduras to the United States. Convictions also laid upon allegations JOH enjoined the Honduran military, Honduran National Police and the Attorney Generals office to help the drugs run smoothly through Honduras on a northward route.
Hernández maintained throughout that he was innocent and the victim of revenge by drug traffickers he had helped extradite to the United States. But the judge said trial evidence proved the opposite and that Hernández employed “considerable acting skills” to make it seem that he strongly opposed drug trafficking while he deployed his nation’s police and military to protect the drug trade. During his sentencing, federal Judge P. Kevin Castel said the punishment should serve as a warning to “well educated, well dressed” individuals who gain power and think their status insulates them from justice when they do wrong.
Despite what appears to be an impending return to Honduras for JOH, the former president is widely condemned by citizens in that country, for his criminal activities equal to those of extreme violence and torture dished out by Mexican cartels. Citizens within the population indicate the alleged inclusion of federal police, the Honduran military with JOH, as well as questions about conspiracy and involvement by the Attorney General’s office have left them even more mistrustful of federal officials and more fearful of the cartel type activities going on in that Central American country now.
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