{"id":8812,"date":"2024-08-29T15:35:39","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T19:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8812"},"modified":"2024-08-31T15:39:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T19:39:19","slug":"honduras-says-it-axed-extradition-treaty-to-avoid-us-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=8812","title":{"rendered":"Honduras Says It Axed Extradition Treaty To Avoid US Plot"},"content":{"rendered":"
President Xiomara Castro of Honduras, shown speaking at the United Nations last year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Honduran President Xiomara Castro said Thursday that her surprise decision to end an extradition treaty with the United States was to prevent it from being used in a plot against her government and military leaders.<\/p>\n

“A plan is being hatched against my government,” Castro said, a day after announcing the end of the pact that has put powerful drug traffickers in US jails.<\/p>\n

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Castro said she took the step in response to “interference” by US Ambassador Laura Dogu, who criticized a meeting of senior Honduran officials with Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.<\/p>\n

Dogu told reporters that she was surprised to see Honduran Defense Minister Jose Manuel Zelaya and military chief General Roosevelt Hernandez sitting next to a “drug trafficker” in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

“They attacked the head of the armed forces and our defense minister — an attack that we cannot allow,” Castro said in a speech while inaugurating an electric power project.<\/p>\n

“I will not allow extradition to be used to intimidate or blackmail the Honduran armed forces. We’re defending our armed forces,” said the leftist leader.<\/p>\n

Castro’s government is a staunch ally of Venezuela, which is under pressure from Washington and other countries following the disputed reelection of President Nicolas Maduro in July.<\/p>\n

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Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said that the extradition treaty was being scrapped to prevent it from being used as a “political weapon” against the government.<\/p>\n

“A coup attempt could be brewing here right now,” Reina said on a television program.<\/p>\n

Military intelligence detected after the US ambassador’s statements that a group of officers was “conspiring” to remove Hernandez, he said.<\/p>\n

Castro’s husband Manuel Zelaya, president from 2006 to 2009, was overthrown in a military coup supported by business elites and the political right.<\/p>\n

The extradition agreement is considered a key tool to dismantle the “narco-state” that, according to US authorities, was built in Honduras when Juan Orlando Hernandez was president from 2014 to 2022.<\/p>\n

Fifty Hondurans accused of drug trafficking have been extradited to the United States over the past decade, including ex-president Hernandez, who was sentenced in June in New York to 45 years in prison.<\/p>\n

– Agence France Presse<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honduran President Xiomara Castro said Thursday that her surprise decision to end an extradition treaty with the United States was to prevent it from being used in a plot against her government and military leaders. “A plan is being hatched against my government,” Castro said, a day after announcing the end of the pact that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":8813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/08\/29\/multimedia\/29honduras-us-clvj\/29honduras-us-clvj-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Honduras Says It Axed Extradition Treaty To Avoid US Plot","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8812","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\/8812","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=8812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8814,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8812\/revisions\/8814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}