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The previous Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was extradited to the US on Thursday, the place he’ll face expenses in a New York court docket accusing him of trafficking medicine for many years to additional his political profession.
About 1:20 p.m., a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration airplane arrived on the Toncontín Worldwide Airport within the capital, Tegucigalpa, and virtually an hour later, the Honduran minister of protection stated Mr. Hernández had been handed over.
A federal indictment unsealed late Thursday in Manhattan charged that over almost the final 20 years, Mr. Hernández “participated in a corrupt and violent drug-trafficking conspiracy to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the US.”
The indictment charged that Mr. Hernández acquired tens of millions of {dollars} from quite a few drug trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico and elsewhere, together with from the previous chief of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Mexican drug lord often called El Chapo.
Mr. Hernández used the proceeds of his drug trafficking to “enrich himself, finance his political campaigns and commit voter fraud,” together with in reference to the 2013 and 2017 Honduran presidential elections, the indictment stated.
“This case ought to ship a transparent message to any overseas chief who corruptly abuses their energy to assist drug cartels,” Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, stated at a information convention Thursday night.
“In case you suppose you possibly can conceal behind the ability of your place, you’re improper,” she added.
Lawyer Basic Merrick B. Garland stated Mr. Hernández ran Honduras as a “narco-state.”
Mr. Hernández stepped down in January after finishing the 2 presidential phrases allowed by regulation. Quickly after, he was detained at his dwelling in Tegucigalpa, triggering an unsuccessful bid by his legal professionals to dam the U.S. authorities’s extradition request.
On the night of Feb. 14, simply minutes after the Honduran Overseas Ministry stated it had acquired the extradition request, police automobiles surrounded Mr. Hernández’s dwelling, and he was led out the following morning in shackles and sporting a bulletproof vest.
“I’m able to current myself voluntarily and defend myself in accordance with the regulation,” he stated in a put up on Fb that morning. Mr. Hernández has lengthy vigorously denied that he has had any function in drug trafficking.
Final month, a Honduran choose dominated that Mr. Hernández ought to be extradited to the US, and his enchantment to the nation’s Supreme Court docket was unsuccessful.
On Thursday, about 100 cops escorted Mr. Hernández from the constructing to the helicopter that may take him to a army base subsequent to the Toncontín airport. He wore a cap, a blue vest and masks and a pair of handcuffs.
Because the helicopter took flight, loud gunpowder detonations had been heard all through town, with hundreds of individuals celebrating the long-awaited extradition of the previous president.
“Justice was completed,” stated Wendy Sierra, 22, a biology pupil on the Nationwide Autonomous College of Honduras. “He left us poor right here, he stole all the things and favored drug traffickers, and nobody ever touched him. However with the gringos you can’t play.”
Allegations have loomed over Mr. Hernández for years because the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Manhattan and the D.E.A. carried out a far-reaching narcotics trafficking investigation that uncovered corruption on the highest ranges in Honduras. The nation of 10 million has develop into a gateway for big quantities of cocaine moved via Mexico and into the US.
In two latest federal trials in Manhattan, testimony positioned Mr. Hernández on the middle of a drug trafficking operation that relied on members of the Honduran army and nationwide police, despatched tons of cocaine into the US and generated tens of millions of {dollars} in proceeds that had been used on behalf of Mr. Hernández’s Nationwide Celebration in campaigns.
Mr. Hernández, alongside together with his brother, Tony Hernández, a former Honduran congressman, “performed a management function in a violent, state-sponsored drug trafficking conspiracy,” prosecutors stated in a 2021 court docket submitting.
The brand new indictment expenses Juan Orlando Hernández with cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine weapons and harmful gadgets and conspiracy to own them.
In 2019, Tony Hernández was convicted of conspiring to import cocaine into the US and different expenses and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Final yr, within the trial of a Honduran man who was convicted of conspiracy and weapons expenses, an accountant testified that he heard Mr. Hernández, when he was a presidential candidate in 2013, say he would get rid of his nation’s extradition treaty with the US, rendering his associates “untouchable.”
In accordance with the testimony, Mr. Hernández additionally stated, “We’re going to stuff medicine up the gringos’ noses, and so they’re by no means even going to realize it.”
On the information convention Thursday, Damian Williams, the U.S. legal professional in Manhattan, stated that whereas Mr. Hernández and his co-conspirators helped to push 500 tons of cocaine into the US — “poison that landed on this nation on our streets,” as he put it — there additionally had been staggering prices for the individuals of Honduras.
“Honduras turned one of the violent international locations on this planet throughout the defendant’s presidency,” Mr. Williams stated, “and whereas Hernández amassed cash and political affect, the individuals of Honduras endured situations of poverty and violence.”
Throughout the administration of former President Donald J. Trump, even whereas Mr. Hernández was below investigation, he was handled as an ally on problems with immigration and safety. In September 2019, after he agreed to a deal that may enable the US to pressure some migrants to hunt asylum in Honduras, Mr. Hernández earned a handshake from Mr. Trump throughout the United Nations Basic Meeting.
Kevin Okay. McAleenan, then the performing U.S. secretary of homeland safety, stated in a tweet on the time that Mr. Hernández was a “strong partner” who was working to “fight irregular migration and transnational felony organizations.”
Though it’s uncommon for an additional nation’s former head of state to be extradited to the US to face prosecution, it’s not unprecedented. In 2013, Alfonso Portillo, the president of Guatemala from 2000 to 2004, was despatched to face prosecution in Manhattan, the place he pleaded responsible in a cash laundering case and was sentenced to almost six years in jail.
And Mr. Hernández shouldn’t be the primary former Honduran president to be prosecuted in New York.
Rafael Callejas, who served from 1990 to 1994, surrendered to the U.S. authorities in 2015 shortly after being charged in a sweeping corruption case that concerned FIFA, soccer’s worldwide governing physique. Mr. Callejas pleaded responsible in federal court docket in Brooklyn to wire fraud conspiracy and racketeering conspiracy expenses; he died in 2020 earlier than he may very well be sentenced.
Benjamin Weiser reported from New York, and Joan Suazo from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Katie Benner contributed reporting from Washington.
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