President Donald Trump has formally pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, in response to his lawyer Renato Stabile.
Trump had introduced his intention of granting a “full and complete pardon” to Hernández final week in a transfer that erases a significant US drug-trafficking conviction for a onetime US ally.
Hernández has been launched from jail, in response to his lawyer. A US Bureau of Prisons database additionally reveals that the former Honduran president was launched from a jail in West Virginia.
“On behalf of President Hernandez and his family I would like to thank President Trump for correcting this injustice. President Hernandez is glad this ordeal is over and is looking forward to regaining his life after almost 4 years in prison,” Stabile added in a press release.
President of Honduras from 2014 till 2022, Hernández was convicted and sentenced final yr to 45 years in jail and given an $8 million high quality by a US choose for drug trafficking offenses.
Hernández’s spouse, Ana García de Hernández, mentioned in a social media put up that her husband was a “free man” due to Trump’s pardon.
The White House on Monday defended Trump’s plan to pardon Hernández after going through criticism that granting clemency to a convicted drug trafficker ran counter to their ongoing stress marketing campaign in opposition to drug cartels within the Caribbean.
“This was a clear Biden over-prosecution,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned. “He was the president of this country. He was in the opposition party. He was opposed to the values of the previous administration, and they charged him because he was president of Honduras.”
But as NCS has reported, prosecutors accused Hernández of conspiring with drug cartels throughout his tenure as they moved greater than 400 tons of cocaine by way of Honduras towards the United States. In trade, prosecutors mentioned, Hernández obtained thousands and thousands of {dollars} in bribes that he used to gas his rise in Honduran politics.
Though the Trump administration is blaming the Biden administration, Hernández’s brother was really prosecuted by Emil Bove throughout Trump’s first time period in workplace. Bove then served as Trump’s private lawyer earlier than changing into a federal choose nominated by Trump.
There have been a number of folks in Trump’s orbit lobbying for Hernandez’s pardon, together with his longtime ally Roger Stone, who mentioned he known as on Trump in June to pardon him and claimed he was focused by the Biden administration.