45 years in jail: Former U.S. & Canadian-backed, drug-trafficking President of Honduras
It is impossible overstate how complicit the U.S. and Canada are in having supported, enabled and legitimized for close to 13 years the repressive, “open for global business”, drug-trafficking regime headed by former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, sentenced on June 26 to 45 years on charges of drug-trafficking.
Honduras ex-president sentenced to 45 years for helping drug traffickers
Al Jazeera, 26 Jun 2024
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/26/honduras-ex-president-sentenced-to-45-years-for-helping-drug-traffickers
Juan Orlando Hernandez attends trial in federal court, New York City. Courtroom sketch: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras once seen as an important US ally with tough-on-crime politics, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for his conviction on drugs and weapons charges. A Manhattan jury in March found Hernandez, 55, guilty of accepting millions of dollars in bribes to protect United States-bound cocaine shipments belonging to traffickers he once publicly proclaimed to combat.
US District Judge Kevin Castel passed down the sentence in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday. “I am innocent,” the 55-year-old Hernandez, who led the Central American nation from 2014 until 2022, said at his sentencing. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.” Hondurans at home and abroad had cheered the conviction, celebrating it as a rare instance of accountability for corruption and deceit by a member of the country’s ruling class.
In March, the jury found that the former leader, often known by his initials JOH, had taken millions of dollars in bribes to shield large shipments of cocaine bound for the US.
Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence, arguing that it would send a firm message to other politicians who use their power to protect powerful criminal groups.
“Without corrupt politicians like the defendant, the kind of large-scale, international drug trafficking at issue in this case, and the rampant drug-related violence that follows, is difficult if not impossible,” prosecutors wrote on Monday.
During a two-week trial, prosecutors said Hernandez used drug money to bribe officials and manipulate voting results during Honduras’s 2013 and 2017 presidential elections. convicted traffickers testified they bribed Hernandez.
Testifying in his own defence, Hernandez denied taking bribes from drug cartels. His lawyers, meanwhile, accused the convicted traffickers of being out for revenge over Hernandez’s anti-drug policies. JOH’s brother Tony Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison in the US in 2021 on drug charges.
Under The Shadow podcast series
Rights Action recommends Episode 7, parts I and II, of the Under the Shadow podcast series that recap the U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup d’etat of June 27, 2009, and then 13 years of unconditional U.S. and Canadian support for the Honduran narco regime.
In Update 3 of the podcast, Karen Spring (former Rights Action colleague, long-time co-coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network) takes the listener inside the trial that found Juan Orlando Hernández guilty of drug trafficking. Karen provides a devastating summary of just how much violence and damage the narco regime did to Honduras, its people and society, government and State institutions, all enabled and legitimized by the U.S. and Canada.
Update 3 – Narcodictator, Convicted
‘Putting the U.S. and Canada on Trial’ campaign
Rights Action encourages folks to follow the work of the Honduras Solidarity Network leading a campaign to hold the U.S. and Canada responsible for supporting the Honduran narco-state.
Facebook: Honduras Solidarity Network & Honduras Now
X: @Hondurassol @HondurasNow
Instagram: @HondurasNow
Web: Bit.ly/NarcoTrialCampaign
Contact: karen@hondurasnow.org
Rights Action archives
Find here (https://rightsaction.org/archives) information about work and struggle in defense of land and human rights, democracy and justice, over the course of the entire 13 years of the U.S. and Canadian backed Narco State in Honduras.