Ex-honduran president, found guilty of smuggling tons of cocaine, out of prison after Trump’s pardon

Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for his role in drug operations in the United States, was released from prison following a pardon from President Donald Trump, officials said Tuesday.

The website of the US Bureau of Prisons in Pradeni indicated that Hernández was released from the US prison, Hazelton in West Virginia on Monday, and a spokesman for Sureau on Tuesday confirmed his release.

His wife, Ana García, thanked Trump for pardoning Hernández on the social platform X on Tuesday.

“After four years of pain, waiting and difficult challenges, my husband Juan Orlando Hernández returned to being a free man, thanks to the pardon of President Donald Trump,” said García’s.

He also included a photo of the US Bureau of Prisons list of Hernández showing his release.

Trump was asked on Sunday why he pardoned Hernández and the reporters who were traveling with him on Air Force one.

“I was asked if it was Honduras — a lot of people from Honduras,” Trump said. “The Hondurans thought he was suspended, and it was a bad thing.”

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Hernández’s lawyer, Renato Anata, said in an emailed statement that he could not share the current location of the former President. He also added that Hernández is happy that the “Trouble” is over.

“On behalf of President Hernández and his family, I would like to thank President Trump for righting this injustice,” Thinland said.

Hernández was arrested at the request of the United States in February 2022, weeks after the current President of Honduras, XIOMARA Castro, took office.

Two years later, Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison in a new federal court for taking bribes from drug dealers so they could safely move 360 ​​tons of cocaine north.

At the beginning of his trial in February 2024, the US prosecutor said that Hernández even bragged in a meeting with drug dealers “of meeting who would spray drugs directly up their noses.”

Hernández has been kept throughout saying he was innocent and the victim of revenge by drug dealers he had helped in the United States.

Trump hinted in his comments in recent days that Hernández was somehow a person being prosecuted from prosecutors in the US Department of Justice during the two-year administration of the conviction of a former president by a former president.

During his sentencing, Federal Judge P. Kevin Castel said the sentence should serve as a warning to “educated, well-dressed” people who gain power and think their status has disorganized them.

Hernández presented himself as a hero of the drug trafficking organization that was cooperating with the US authorities under the three drug administrations to reduce the importation of drugs.

But the judge said that the evidence of the test proved the opposite and that Hernández used “certain operational skills” that made it seem that he strongly contradicted the police while protesting about drug trafficking while using the police in his position to protect the drug trade.

The former president’s brother was convicted of distributing 165 tons of cocaine and ordered to forfeit $138.5 million for illegal drug trafficking.

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The move angered Democrats in Washington as Trump used the alleged flow of drugs into the US as a legal basis for a series of strikes near Venezuela and the Pacific Rim, which have killed more than 80 people since September 2.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine called Trump’s decision to pardon Hernández “Horrifying.”

“He was the leader of one of the largest criminal enterprises ever convicted by US courts, and he is less than one year into his sentence, President Trump is pardoning him,” Kaine said on CBS Face the nation.

Republican reaction was mixed, with Oklahoma Sen. Rellin telling CNN she trusted Trump’s judgment on the matter, while Florida Congressmember Maria Salazar, often a defender of the same, told the same network that she “

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, from Louisiana, was more emphatic in his criticism of X.

“Why can’t we forgive this brother and then follow [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro of drugs to the United States? Always lock the drug runner! Don’t understand why he’s being forgiven,” Cassidy said over the weekend.

Hernández is not guaranteed an immediate return to Honduras.

Shortly after Trump announced his intention to pardon Hernández, General Gelel Zelaya announced his desire to seek justice and end impunity.

He did not specify whether Hernández would face that in Honduras. There was an investigation related to the fraud of his management of the administration beyond the two names of the office that did not lead to the charges against him. President Castro, who oversaw Hernández’s arrest in the US, will remain in office until January.

The pardon promised by Trump in the days that come before Mongase’s election in Honduras, injects a new element into the race. Trump approved the national asfura nasry last week.

Vote Mate continued on Tuesday.