Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, 55, has been discovered responsible in a New York federal courtroom of collaborating in a scheme to ship cocaine by means of his nation and into america.
On Friday, a jury within the Southern District Court docket of New York rendered its verdict after two weeks of argument, convicting Hernandez on prices associated to drug trafficking and weapons possession.
He was convicted on all three legal counts he confronted: the primary for conspiring to import cocaine into the US, the second for carrying “machine weapons and damaging units” to assist in cocaine shipments, and the third for conspiring to make use of these weapons to pursue his goals.
The latter two prices carry most sentences of life in jail.
US prosecutors had accused Hernandez of partnering “with a number of the largest cocaine traffickers on the planet” and utilizing his public workplace to guard shipments passing by means of Honduras.
In change, the prosecutors argued, Hernandez acquired bribes to additional his political profession. In a single occasion, as Hernandez campaigned for his first time period as president in 2013, prosecutors mentioned he accepted roughly $1m from Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, the chief of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, a robust drug smuggling syndicate.
Hernandez has denied the costs in opposition to him and has as an alternative sought to bolster his picture as a tough-on-crime politician, recognized for “mano dura” or “iron fist” techniques.
His defence group likewise tried to border damaging testimony as makes an attempt by drug traffickers and different criminals to get lighter sentencing in their very own instances.
“All of them have motivation to lie, and they’re skilled liars,” Hernandez mentioned of the prosecution witnesses.
Defence lawyer Renato Stabile used his closing argument this week to make the case that his shopper had “been wrongfully charged”.
However the prosecution painted Hernandez as utilizing the “full energy and energy of the state” to rework Honduras into “a cocaine superhighway to america”.
Hernandez’s two phrases in workplace, from 2014 to 2022, had been marked by a collection of scandals, and his trial within the US was intently watched by Hondurans at house and within the nation’s diaspora, with some showing outdoors the court docket to display.
“The individuals suffered a lot in Honduras,” one courtroom attendee, Cecilio Alfaro, instructed Al Jazeera final week. “There’s going to be justice, divine justice.”
Identified by his initials JOH, Hernandez campaigned on the slogan of “una vida mejor” — a greater life for Hondurans. He additionally pledged to crack down on drug trafficking throughout the nation’s borders, utilizing his inauguration speech to ship a message to cocaine smugglers: “The celebration is over.”
However rapidly, his personal administration turned embroiled in controversy, together with allegations he had dipped into funds for the nation’s Social Safety Institute for private acquire.
US prosecutors mentioned he additionally used his workplace to guard his youthful brother, former Honduran Congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, from arrest and extradition. The US Drug Enforcement Company (DEA) in the end arrested Tony Hernández in 2018, whereas his brother was nonetheless president.
In 2021, Tony Hernandez was sentenced to life in jail in a US federal court docket for his function in distributing 185 tonnes of cocaine.
Solely weeks after leaving workplace in February 2022, former President Hernandez surrendered to US authorities who had surrounded his residence within the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. He was extradited that April.
In a information launch after Friday’s conviction, america Lawyer’s Workplace hailed the jury’s resolution as sending a message of justice to “all corrupt politicians who would take into account an analogous path”.
“Juan Orlando Hernandez had each alternative to be a drive for good in his native Honduras,” mentioned US Lawyer Damian Williams. “As an alternative, he selected to abuse his workplace and nation for his personal private acquire.”
Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland likewise mentioned Hernandez had “abused his place” to rework Honduras right into a “narco-state”.
“As right now’s conviction demonstrates, the Justice Division is disrupting all the ecosystem of drug trafficking networks that hurt the American individuals, irrespective of how far or how excessive we should go,” Garland mentioned in an announcement on Friday.