A court docket in Honduras has dropped costs towards former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who returned to the nation in July after being pardoned in the USA for a drug-trafficking conviction.
Hernandez had been accused of fraud and cash laundering as a part of a corruption scheme from 2010 to 2013, earlier than his presidency.
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However on Tuesday, judiciary spokesperson Carlos Silva instructed reporters that Hernandez was not accountable for budgetary selections on the time of the crimes. Hernandez, a distinguished politician within the right-wing Nationwide Celebration, celebrated the choice as a vindication.
“This chapter of political persecution has now ended,” Hernandez mentioned after the choice.
He argued that the case towards him “had no foundation” and was pursued for political functions.
“Those that orchestrated this operation not solely wished to see me banished from Honduras eternally, by no means to return, however they have been decided to go away my household on the road,” he mentioned.
However Hernandez, recognized by his initials JOH, has confronted repeated scrutiny throughout his time as a rising political determine in Honduras. He served as president of the nation from 2014 to 2022.
Even throughout his time period in workplace, studies indicated that he had come below the investigation of the US Drug Enforcement Company (DEA).
Although he was thought-about an ally of the US-backed “warfare on medication”, prosecutors would later accuse him of abusing his energy, utilizing his place to assist drug traffickers smuggle narcotics whereas amassing bribes to speed up his political ascent.
The US Division of Justice mentioned he was the “heart of one of many largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies on the earth”.
Inside months of his presidency’s finish, in April 2022, Honduran officers extradited Hernandez to the US. In court docket filings, US prosecutors quoted Hernandez as saying he would “shove the medication proper up the noses of the gringos”.
He was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to 45 years in jail.
Many Hondurans had celebrated his March 2024 conviction within the US as a uncommon case of a strong official being held accountable. There have been demonstrations exterior the New York Metropolis court docket the place his sentencing happened, with protesters waving Honduran flags.
However when US President Donald Trump returned to workplace in 2025, he sought to advance the pursuits of his fellow right-wing leaders throughout Latin America, together with by providing political and economic support throughout elections.
Honduras held common elections to pick a brand new president and members of Congress in November 2025.
Days earlier than the vote, nevertheless, Trump pledged to pardon Hernandez and threatened to withhold help from Honduras.
The vote depend stretched on for weeks because the race for president got here down to 2 right-wing candidates: the centrist Salvador Nasralla and Nasry Asfura, from Hernandez’s Nationwide Celebration.
On December 2, within the midst of the vote depend, Trump adopted by way of along with his pardon for Hernandez. He claimed that Hernandez had been “handled very harshly and unfairly” below his predecessor, former US President Joe Biden.
Asfura in the end gained the presidential race.
However even with a pardon within the US, Hernandez confronted authorized jeopardy at dwelling in Honduras.
He confronted costs as a part of the Pandora case, a corruption scandal within the Central American nation.
The case centred around accusations that high officers, together with Hernandez, funnelled public funds to their political campaigns by way of authorities disbursements.
Prosecutors mentioned the officers concerned within the scandal diverted roughly $10.8m in state funds between 2010 and 2013. Hernandez allegedly acquired about $2.3m. A few of these funds have been allegedly used to finance his presidential marketing campaign.
The home arrest warrant Hernandez confronted, nevertheless, was suspended, permitting him to return to Honduras in July.
Analysts expressed concern that Trump’s backing and the Nationwide Celebration’s management of the federal government might flip the trial right into a sham course of.
Honduras’s judiciary on Tuesday maintained that the proof “didn’t set up the defendant’s participation within the investigated occasions”.
Different politicians concerned within the Pandora scandal, together with former President Porfirio Lobo and ex-Finance Minister Wilfredo Cerrato, have additionally seen their costs dropped.
