Trump to pardon drug trafficking former Honduran president saying he was treated ‘very harshly and unfairly’

President Donald Trump said Friday he will pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

In 2024, Hernandez was convicted of drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

The president explained his decision on social media: ‘According to many people I respect very much,’ Hernandez ‘was treated very harshly and unfairly.’

In March last year, Hernandez, who ruled the Central American country from 2014 to 2022, was convicted in a US court of conspiring to import 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US.

A few weeks after leaving office, the current president was extradited to the United States when leftist Xiomara Castro came to power.

Hernandez served two terms as the leader of the Central American country with a population of approximately 10 million.

Hernandez is appealing his conviction and is serving time at the Hazelton U.S. Penitentiary in West Virginia.

Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Hernández’s wife and two daughters gathered on the steps of their home in Tegucigalpa, knelt in prayer, and thanked God that Hernández would be returning to his family after almost four years.

In 2024, Hernandez was convicted of drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Trump shared his pardon for former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez on Truth Social Friday afternoon

Following their father’s conviction, his daughters have been publicly campaigning for his release.

It was the same house from which Honduran authorities removed him from office in 2022, just months after leaving office. He was extradited to the United States for trial.

García said they were able to talk to Hernández and give him the news.

‘She still didn’t know this news and believe me, her voice broke with emotion when we shared it,’ she said.

García thanked Trump and said Trump had corrected an injustice, suggesting that Hernández’s trial was a coordinated plot by drug traffickers and the ‘radical left’ to seek revenge against the former president.

He said they had not been told exactly when Hernández would return, but “we hope for it in the coming days.”

Hernandez’s attorney, Renato C. Stabile, expressed gratitude for Trump’s actions.

“A great injustice has been corrected, and we are very hopeful about the future partnership of the United States and Honduras,” Stabile said.

‘Thank you President Trump for ensuring justice is served. We look forward to President Hernandez’s triumphant return to Honduras.’

Following their father’s conviction, his daughters Daniela and Isabela led a public campaign for his release.

Ana Garcia de Hernandez (center), wife of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, speaks to the media at a news conference in Tegucigalpa on Friday.

Ana García (center), wife of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and their daughter Daniela, left, and Isabela raise fists in Honduras after Donald Trump said he would pardon Hernández, who is serving a 45-year prison sentence

The post was part of a broader message in which Trump supported Nasry ‘Tito’ Asfura for the Honduran presidency and said the US would support the country if Trump won.

Asfura is the candidate of Hernandez’s right-wing party. If he loses this Sunday’s election, Trump shared, ‘The USA will not throw bad money after bad money, because a wrong Leader can only bring disastrous results to a country, no matter what it is.’

Trump has previously supported Asfura, but these latest comments go further by tying future aid to Honduras to Trump’s victory.

Asfura, 67, is running for president for the second time on behalf of the conservative National Party.

He was the mayor of Tegucigalpa and promised to solve Honduras’ infrastructure needs. However, he had previously been accused of embezzling public funds, allegations he denied.

Besides Asfura, there are two other possible candidates for the presidency of Honduras:

Rixi Moncada, who served as finance and then defense minister before leaving to run for president of the incumbent democratic socialist Libre party, and former television personality Salvador Nasralla, who is making his fourth presidential bid, this time as the Liberal Party’s candidate.

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez (second from right) is handcuffed and led to a waiting plane as he is extradited to the United States at an Air Force base in Honduras in April 2022.

Ana Garcia (left), wife of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, listens to her daughter Daniela in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, after hearing the news of Trump’s imminent pardon

On Friday, Trump accused Nasralla, 72, of being a spoiler candidate to divert votes away from Asfura.

Noting that Nasralla served as Castro’s vice president before resigning, Trump said that “he is now acting like an anti-communist for the sole purpose of splitting Asfura’s votes.”

Trump also accused Castro’s political heir Moncada of being a ‘communist’ and said his victory would be a victory for Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and his Narcoterrorists.

Trump called the Honduran election a test of democracy and suggested in a separate Truth Social post that if Asfura loses, the country could go the way of Venezuela and fall under the influence of the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has sought to put pressure on Maduro by ordering a series of strikes against boats suspected of carrying drugs and bolstering the U.S. military presence in the Caribbean with warships, including the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford.

The US president did not rule out military intervention or covert action by the CIA against Venezuela, but also said he was open to talks with Maduro.

Outgoing Honduran President Xiomara Castro has leaned toward a leftist stance, but has maintained a pragmatic and even cooperative tone in dealings with the U.S. administration, receiving visits from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Army Gen. Laura Richardson during her time as commander of U.S. Southern Command.

The president even backed down from threatening to end Honduras’ extradition treaty and military cooperation with the United States.

Under Castro, Honduras also accepted citizens deported from the United States and served as a bridge for deported Venezuelans, who were then rounded up in Honduras by Venezuela.

Trump made a similar threat before the elections in Argentina last month.

Argentinian President Javier Milei, a staunch fan of Trump, also expressed support for Asfura in Honduras on Friday.

“I fully support Tito Asfura, the candidate who best represents the opposition against the leftist tyrants who destroyed Honduras,” the libertarian president said in a statement on his X account.

Former US president Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, said after Hernandez was sentenced last year that he ‘abused his power to support one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world’.

In a social media post on Friday, Trump said, without elaborating, that Hernandez “was treated very harshly and unfairly by many people I respect very much.”