Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández is pardoned by Trump

New York.- Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022) was released this Monday in the United States thanks to a pardon from Donald Trump just one year after being sentenced to more than four decades for drug trafficking. Hernández, 57, was extradited to the United States in April 2022, after being arrested in February of that same year at his official residence in Tegucigalpa, remains missing and it is unknown if he will return to Honduras, where he still faces investigations and possible legal proceedings. In March 2024, a jury in the federal court of the Southern District of New York (Manhattan) found him guilty of three counts of drug trafficking and weapons. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison, five years of supervised release, and a fine of eight million dollars.

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Hernández asked Trump to be pardoned through a letter in which he praised him, reminding him of the collaboration between both countries during the Republican’s first term. The pardon, announced last Friday, coincided with Trump’s support in the Honduran presidential elections on Sunday for the conservative candidate Nasry ‘Tito’ Asfura, who is in a dispute in the recount with the opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla.