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US Drug Enforcement Administration brokers have extradited the Honduran former president Juan Orlando Hernández to New York, the place he’ll face federal drug trafficking and weapons prices.
Honduran nationwide police delivered a handcuffed Hernández to DEA brokers on the Tegucigalpa airport simply over two months after he was arrested outdoors his residence on 15 February following an extradition request from the US Division of Justice.
Hernández, 53, left workplace on 27 January after two phrases as president. Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have accused him of accepting tens of millions of {dollars} in bribes from violent drug traffickers in change for cover from legislation enforcement. He’s charged with drug trafficking conspiracy and two associated weapons prices, which carry a mixed obligatory minimal sentence of 40 years in jail.
Hernández is predicted to plead not responsible upon arraignment. He has repeatedly denied any involvement with drug traffickers, describing the allegations as lies made up by criminals who’re making an attempt to cut back their very own sentences by means of cooperation.
“That is revenge from the cartels, it’s an orchestrated plot in order that no authorities will confront them once more,” he stated in a handwritten letter published last month. “A part of that conspiracy has been a marketing campaign of hate and misinformation. Nevertheless it’s evident, the contradictions of criminals, trial after trial, they lie and contradict themselves.”
Thought of one in all Washington’s prime allies within the area throughout his first time period, garnering reward from US officers together with the then vice-president, Joe Biden, the conservative president fell out of favour with Democrats following his questionable 2017 re-election and mounting drug trafficking allegations after the arrest of his brother, the previous legislator Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, on the identical prices in 2018. Tony Hernández was later convicted and sentenced to life in jail.
President Biden shunned Hernández upon taking workplace final yr, however has since embraced the brand new Honduran president, the centre-left Xiomara Castro, who was elected by a landslide in November in a vote thought of a referendum on the eight scandal-plagued years of the Hernández administration. The extradition of Hernández – as soon as untouchable in Honduras – offered an early check for the Castro administration, which got here to energy on a promise to combat drug trafficking and corruption.
Over the previous three years, the case US authorities have been constructing towards Hernández turned more and more clear. Prosecutors named Hernández as an unindicted co-conspirator in his brother’s trial and two subsequent circumstances, together with that of the previous nationwide police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla.
Based on the criticism filed towards Bonilla, nicknamed “el Tigre” (the Tiger) for his fierce look and violent popularity, the previous prime cop allegedly protected drug shipments and carried out particular duties for the Hernández brothers, together with homicide. He was captured on 9 March after almost a yr on the run and is more likely to be extradited to New York in Could.
Hernández had been protected against prosecution by US authorities due to a Division of Justice coverage to not indict sitting presidents. However a warrant for his arrest was issued underneath seal inside hours of his leaving workplace, and the request for his extradition was despatched to Honduras three weeks later.
In 2012, as president of the Nationwide Congress, Hernández performed a key function within the passage of a constitutional reform permitting Honduran nationals to be extradited to the US on drug trafficking and different prices. He typically cited this as proof of his innocence, stating that somebody who labored to push extradition by means of Congress wouldn’t conspire with drug traffickers. Hernández is the thirtieth Honduran to be extradited to the US.
Organised crime has infiltrated politics throughout Latin America, however Hernández is the primary former president within the area to be extradited to the US to face drug trafficking prices.
The case attracts shut comparability to that of Panama’s former dictator Manuel Noriega, a basic and de facto chief who was extradited to the US on drug trafficking prices following a December 1989 US army invasion that ousted him. Like Hernández, Noriega was accused of double-crossing the DEA. He was convicted and spent nearly twenty years in jail.
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