Former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández Freed After Trump Pardon
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison last year for helping drug traffickers move hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, has been released from prison following an arrest warrant. Pardon from President Donald Trumphis wife announced on Tuesday.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate website showed Hernández was released from the U.S. Penitentiary in Hazelton, West Virginia, on Monday, and a bureau spokesman confirmed his release Tuesday.
His wife, Ana García, thanked Trump for pardoning Hernández via social platform X earlier Tuesday.
“After almost four years of pain, waiting, and difficult hardships, my husband, Juan Orlando Hernández, is BACK a free man thanks to President Donald Trump’s presidential pardon,” García’s post said. He also included a picture of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons list showing Hernández’s release.
Hernández was arrested at the request of the United States in February 2022, weeks after he handed over power to current President Xiomara Castro.
Andy Buchanan/Pool via AP
Two years later, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in a New York federal courtroom for accepting bribes from drug traffickers to move nearly 400 tons of cocaine safely north through Honduras to the United States.
Hernández maintained that he was innocent and that he was the victim of revenge by drug traffickers he helped extradite to the United States.
Reporters traveling with him on Air Force One on Sunday asked Trump why he pardoned Hernandez.
“Honduras and most of the Honduran people asked me that question,” Trump said.
“The Honduran people really thought he was being set up, and it was a terrible thing,” he said.
“They said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. And they said it was a set-up for the Biden administration. So I looked at the facts and agreed with them.”
Trump’s promised amnesty Days before the presidential elections in Honduras injected a new element Some said he was helping the candidate of the National Party, Nasry Asfura, who was one of the leaders as vote counting continued on Tuesday.
