<\/p>\n
A defiant former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez was sentenced in New York Wednesday to 45 years in prison for teaming up with some bribe-paying drug traffickers for over a decade to ensure over 400 tons of cocaine made it to the United States.<\/p>\n
Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced Hern\u00e1ndez to 45 years in a U.S. prison and fined him $8 million, saying that the penalty should serve as a warning to \u201cwell educated, well dressed\u201d individuals who gain power and think their status insulates them from justice when they do wrong.<\/p>\n
A jury convicted him in March in Manhattan federal court after a two-week trial<\/a><\/span>, which was closely followed in his home country<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cI am innocent,\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez said through an interpreter at his sentencing. \u201cI was wrongly and unjustly accused.\u201d<\/p>\n In a lengthy extemporaneous statement interrupted several times by the judge who repeatedly reminded him that this was not a time to relitigate the trial, Hern\u00e1ndez portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug trafficking movement who teamed up with American authorities under three U.S. presidential administrations to reduce drug imports.<\/p>\n But the judge said trial evidence proved the opposite and that Hern\u00e1ndez employed \u201cconsiderable acting skills\u201d to make it seem that he was an anti-drug trafficking crusader while he deployed his nation\u2019s police and military, when necessary, to protect the drug trade.<\/p>\n Castel called Hern\u00e1ndez a \u201ctwo-faced politician hungry for power\u201d who protected a select group of traffickers.<\/p>\n As the sentence was announced, the bespectacled Hern\u00e1ndez in a dull green prison uniform stood next to his lawyer in front of two U.S. marshals. After shaking hands with his lawyer and turning to nod toward the packed spectator section, Hern\u00e1ndez hobbled out of court with the help of a cane and a brace on one foot.<\/p>\n Prosecutors had sought a sentence of life in prison, plus 30 years, the same as the recommendation from the court\u2019s probation officers.<\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez, 55, served two terms as the leader of the Central American nation of roughly 10 million people.<\/p>\n He was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, three months after leaving office in 2022 and was extradited to the U.S.<\/a><\/span> in April of that year.<\/p>\n U.S. prosecutors say Hern\u00e1ndez worked with drug traffickers as long ago as 2004, taking millions of dollars in bribes as he rose from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the country\u2019s highest office.<\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez acknowledged in trial testimony that drug money was paid to virtually all political parties in Honduras, but he denied accepting bribes himself<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez insisted in his lengthy statement Wednesday that his trial was unjust because he was not allowed to include evidence that would have caused the jury to find him not guilty. He said he was being persecuted by politicians and drug traffickers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s as if I had been thrown into a deep river with my hands bound,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In Honduras Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu called the sentencing an important step in combating the social consequences of drug trafficking.<\/p>\n \u201cHere in Honduras and in the United States, we cannot forget that the actions of Juan Orlando have made the people suffer,\u201d Dogu said.<\/p>\n Luis Romero, a Honduran criminal lawyer and analyst, said the sentence was a surprise to many people in Honduras who believed he would receive a life sentence.<\/p>\n At a news conference in Honduras, Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s wife, Ana Garc\u00eda, said her husband was innocent and called the sentencing a \u201cjudicial lynching.\u201d Garc\u00eda \u2014 who is planning to run for president<\/a><\/span> next year \u2014 said she looked forward to her husband\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n \u201cToday is only a chapter in a series of injustices,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Trial witnesses included traffickers who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders and said Hern\u00e1ndez was an enthusiastic protector of some of the world\u2019s most powerful cocaine dealers, including notorious Mexican drug lord Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n, who is serving a life prison term in the U.S.<\/p>\n During his remarks, the judge noted that Guzman had given a $1 million bribe in 2013 directly to Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s brother, Juan Antonio \u201cTony\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez, a former Honduran congressman who was sentenced to life<\/a><\/span> in a U.S. prison in 2021 in New York for his own conviction on drug charges<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez shook his head when he heard Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig tell the judge that he chose to \u201ccommit evil.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo one, not even the former president of a country, is above the law,\u201d Gutwillig said.<\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez was sentenced in a federal courthouse less than two blocks from where former U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced July 11 following his conviction on charges of falsifying business records.<\/p>\n As he announced the sentence, Castel spoke at length about the ways Hern\u00e1ndez had received a fair trial and described much of the key evidence that emerged at trial to prove guilt.<\/p>\n Castel described the number of killings linked to the drug trade during Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s political career as \u201cstaggering,\u201d saying one drug trafficking witness admitted at the trial that he aided 56 killings and another said he was involved in 78 murders before he began cooperating with U.S. authorities.<\/p>\n He noted that Hern\u00e1ndez only helped the drug traffickers who aided his political ambitions, and not all the time.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, he was too smart for that,\u201d Castel said. The judge said Hern\u00e1ndez aided traffickers whenever he could.<\/p>\n \u201cHis No. 1 goal was his own political survival,\u201d Castel said.<\/p>\n – Larry Neumeister, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A defiant former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez was sentenced in New York Wednesday to 45 years in prison for teaming up with some bribe-paying drug traffickers for over a decade to ensure over 400 tons of cocaine made it to the United States. Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced Hern\u00e1ndez to 45 years in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/563828c\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/5760x3840+0+0\/resize\/1440x960!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F87%2Fd8%2Fe5c7def9831299395779f42be2f6%2F4d1cc18e0f644c768cb5e46583f3bc55","fifu_image_alt":"Former Honduran President Sentenced to 45 Years for Helping Traffickers Get Tons of Cocaine into U.S.","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8689,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8687\/revisions\/8689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}