Honduras’s lawyer common mentioned he has issued an arrest warrant for former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was free of US federal jail final week after being pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez mentioned on X Monday that he had requested authorities companies and international police company Interpol to arrest Hernández, who’s accused of cash laundering and fraud.
“We have been lacerated by the tentacles of corruption and by criminal networks that have profoundly marked the life of our country,” Zelaya mentioned.
His submit included a photograph of the Supreme Court’s arrest order which was dated Nov. 28, the identical day Trump introduced his intention to pardon Hernández –– a transfer that drew criticism from either side of the political aisle in each the US and Honduras.
President of Honduras from 2014 till 2022, Hernández was convicted and sentenced final 12 months to 45 years in federal jail and given an $8 million positive by a US decide for drug trafficking offenses.
Hernández’s home prices are in reference to an enormous anti-corruption investigation in Honduras often called Pandora II, a scheme that implicated high politicians, authorities officers and businesspeople within the nation. Prosecutors allege Hernández illegally siphoned about $2.4 million in a kickback from public contracts for his 2013 marketing campaign.
In an announcement to NCS, Hernandez’s lawyer Renato Stabile mentioned Hernández’s arrest warrant was a political play by Honduras’s ruling Libre social gathering – a rival of the conservative National Party he as soon as led.
“This is obviously a strictly political move on behalf of the defeated radical left Libre party as they are being forced out of power by the people of Honduras. It is shameful and desperate piece of political theatre and these charges are completely baseless,” Stabile mentioned.
Luis Santos, the director of Honduras’ Specialized Unit towards Corruption Crimes, instructed NCS just a few days in the past that Hernández had “an open case in the Supreme Court of Justice for money laundering and fraud,” and that an earlier worldwide arrest warrant had been within the possession of the Ministry of Security and Interpol since September 2023.
Santos added that if Hernández didn’t return to Honduras, they might request his extradition from the United States.
Trump formally pardoned Hernández on Dec. 3, telling reporters on the White House “I feel pretty good about it,” and calling the prosecution a “Biden horrible witch hunt.”
The transfer was criticized by each Republican and Democratic members of Congress, who questioned Trump’s resolution to pardon somebody with a drug trafficking conviction when his administration has been so targeted on disrupting drug trafficking in Latin America, ramping up navy exercise and launching controversial strikes on alleged drug boats within the Caribbean.
US prosecutors had accused Hernández of conspiring with drug cartels throughout his tenure as President as they moved greater than 400 tons of cocaine by way of Honduras towards the United States. In trade, prosecutors mentioned, Hernández obtained hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes that he used to gas his political rise.
Hernández had insisted he was harmless, claiming his trial was “rigged” and that it relied on the accusations of criminals who sought revenge towards him.
The former Honduran chief thanked Trump for “having the courage to defend justice at a moment when a weaponized system refused to acknowledge the truth,” in an X submit on Wednesday.