Hernández began his political career in 1998 when he won a seat in congress to represent his home department of Lempira – located within a key drug trafficking corridor in western Honduras. His sentencing is scheduled for February.īucking tradition, Hernández did not attend the inauguration of his successor, Xiomara Castro, on 27 January – the same day that an arrest warrant was issued in the United States. Fuentes was convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy and related weapons charges. In a third case less than a year later, a court heard that Hernández had allegedly plotted with another Honduran drug trafficker, Geovanny Fuentes, to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos”. According to the indictment, Hernández entrusted Bonilla “with special assignments, including murder”. In April 2020, Hernández was named again as a co-conspirator when US prosecutors indicted former national police chief Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla Valladares with drug trafficking and related weapons charges. He was sentenced last year to life in prison. Tony Hernández was convicted on drug trafficking conspiracy and related weapons charges. During the subsequent trial, prosecutors accused the brothers of overseeing a scheme that they described as “state-sponsored drug trafficking”. “A person who has colluded with drug traffickers would never approve extradition,” he said.īut evidence presented by US prosecutors in recent trials of Honduran drug traffickers suggests that Hernández believed he could control who was extradited –and therefore avoid repercussions for him and close allies.įormal accusations of Hernández’s alleged involvement in drug trafficking first came to light in August 2019 when he was named in a court filing as a co-conspirator of his brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, who was arrested while visiting the United States.
He has also pointed to a constitutional reform allowing Hondurans to be extradited to the US – passed while president of Congress in 2012 – as evidence of his innocence. “They found the magic key to go unpunished, surrender and negotiate and accuse the institutions for putting them behind bars,” said Hernández in a February 2021 address. Hernández has previously described the allegations against him as lies made up by violent drug traffickers who are seeking revenge and to reduce their sentences. About 100 police officers had surrounded Hernández’s home late on Monday, pending the decision by the supreme court to issue an arrest warrant.
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