Trump referred to as Hernandez’s drug-trafficking trial a set-up by the Biden administration.
Revealed On 26 Jul 2026
Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez has returned to Honduras from the US after President Donald Trump pardoned him after he acquired a 45-year jail sentence for drug trafficking.
Hernandez returned to the Central American nation on Sunday, 4 years after being extradited to the US. He’s now attributable to go on trial in Honduras on fraud and money-laundering fees, however activists fear that he is not going to face actual justice.
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Trump granted Hernandez a presidential pardon in December, asserting that he didn’t obtain a good trial and was arrange by former US President Joe Biden’s administration.
“I can not deny the profound emotion and pleasure I really feel in my coronary heart to be returning residence,” Hernandez wrote on social media earlier this month, saying he was counting down the times to see his household.
“It wasn’t simple. The method has been extraordinarily tough … and what I skilled in jail, I really wouldn’t want on anybody,” he added.
As he arrived at Palmerola Worldwide Airport, he was greeted by his household and dozens of supporters of his Nationwide Occasion.
Arrest warrant suspended
Regardless of his pardon on the US fees, Hernandez is anticipated to seem in court docket on August 3 to face the Honduran fees.
Nonetheless, he was not detained upon arrival in Honduras as a result of an arrest warrant was suspended in June, and native activists are involved that the trial will change into a sham.
“All the things factors to the suspension being step one,” mentioned Joaquin Mejia, a lawyer and researcher for the Reflection, Analysis and Communication Staff, a human rights organisation.
“He’ll come, they’ll seemingly concern him various measures to imprisonment to maintain up appearances, after which he’ll find yourself with none downside, with none sanction.”
“There’s a social majority that’s outraged however doesn’t converse out due to concern,” Mejia added “We’re speaking in regards to the boss of all drug bosses.”
Hernandez, as soon as thought of an ally by the US in its “warfare on medication”, led Honduras from 2014 to 2022. Throughout that point, he mentioned throughout a gathering with drug sellers that they’d “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos”, in line with a US prosecutor at his trial in New York.
A Pandora Papers corruption investigation accused Hernandez and different high-profile officers of diverting practically $11m in state funds to political campaigns from 2010 to 2013. A few of this cash was allegedly used for Hernandez’s first presidential marketing campaign.
Former President Porfirio Lobo and ex-Finance Minister Wilfredo Cerrato had been each implicated in the identical investigation, and the costs towards them had been dismissed.
