Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was detained on charges of drug dealing and money laundering, was sent to the United States to stand trial.
Hernandez, who was the president from 2014 to January 27, 2022, was detained on February 15, at the request of the United States, after his term of office expired.
Hernandez was taken to New York on a plane belonging to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) under heavy security.
Juan Orlando Hernandez denies the charges and claims the drug traffickers are trying to get revenge on him.
The United States charged Hernandez with the following accusations:
- Conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the country
- Carrying and using weapons, including machine guns
- Conspiracy to carry weapons
“I am innocent. I am facing an unfair trial,” Hernandez said in a video released on his wife’s Twitter account.
Hernandez will appear in court today in New York, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
Prosecutor Damian Williams argued that Hernandez “constituted a corrupt and brutal empire based on the tons of cocaine trades by collaborating with the world’s biggest drug traffickers”.
DEA Director Anne Milgram described Hernandez as “a figure at the center of the largest and most brutal cocaine conspiracies in the world.”
‘EL CHAPO GIVES A MILLION DOLLARS’
The charges against Hernandez, 53, came to light after his brother, former Honduran Congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, was sentenced to life in prison in the United States last year on drug trafficking charges.
At the trial, prosecutors claimed that Mexican drug cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman had given one million dollars to Juan Antonio Hernandez.
According to the prosecution, El Chapo told Tony Hernandez to give the money to his older brother, Juan Orlando Hernandez, to use in his presidential campaign.
Juan Orlando Hernandez is accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes during his eight-year presidency in exchange for protecting drug traffickers and preventing their arrest and deportation to the United States.
The United States, in its extradition application to Honduras, claimed that Hernandez received tons of cocaine from Colombia, Venezuela and other countries by sea and air.
It is stated in the application file that a total of 500 tons of cocaine has been smuggled into the USA through Guatemala since 2004.