Honduras is requesting the execution of an arrest warrant for 2023 against former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was pardoned by Trump

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández presents his national statement as part of the World Summit of Heads of State and Government at the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 on November 1, 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

- Author, Leire Sales
- Author title, BBC News Mundo correspondent in Los Angeles
43 minutes

The Attorney General of the State of Honduras, Johel Zelaya, called this Monday on national security organizations and the International Police (Interpol) to execute an arrest warrant for 2023 against former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was pardoned last week by the President of the United States, Donald Trump.

“I inform the Honduran people that I have instructed the ATIC (Criminal Investigation Technical Agency), and I also call on the state security agencies and our international allies such as INTERPOL to execute the international arrest warrant against former President Juan Orlando Hernández, accused of money laundering and fraud,” Zelaya said on the social network X.

The alleged crimes against Hernández are linked to a multi-million-dollar case that also affected former lawmakers, businessmen and individuals, in which state funds were diverted to finance the 2013 political campaign.

“We have been torn apart by the tentacles of corruption and criminal networks that have deeply shaped the life of our country,” he added.

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The Attorney General explained that “the first line of investigation” of the case had already been completed and that the then director of the Directorate of Children, Youth and Families, Dulce María Villanueva Sánchez, had been arrested for alleged irregularities at the top of the organization.

“Our commitment is to truth and justice, as I promised on my first day at the helm of this institution,” he emphasized.

Pardoned by Trump

He did so in a context in which Washington has sent part of its navy to the Caribbean coast to stop drug trafficking in its territory and has sunk around twenty suspected drug boats, killing more than 80 people.

He was captured in Tegucigalpa in February 2022, less than three weeks after he left power in Honduras in response to an extradition request from the United States, which was fulfilled in April of that year.

Prosecutors who tried Hernández in the United States accused him of turning Honduras into a “drug state” and profiting from the trial, which the politician described as a “slander.” And he was found guilty in June 2024.

Arguing that the Central American politician had been “treated very harshly and unfairly,” Trump announced the presidential pardon on Nov. 28, less than 48 hours before Hondurans went to the polls to elect leftist Xiomara Castro’s successor as president.

The US president also expressed his support for Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the right-wing National Party candidate and Hernández’s successor.

Honduran police officers escort Juan Orlando Hernández, former President of Honduras, center, to Toncontín International Airport (TGU) in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Thursday, April 21, 2022. The Supreme Court of Honduras confirmed the extradition of former President Hernández to the United States, where he faces drug trafficking charges. Photographer: Tomas Ayuso/Bloomberg (via Getty Images) — caption, Juan Orlando Hernández was captured in Honduras in 2022 and found guilty of drug trafficking in the United States in June 2024.

Asfura leads the exam, which had been blocked since Friday and resumed this Monday, but with an advantage over Salvador Nasralla, the former television presenter and candidate of the Liberal Party.

With 97% of votes counted, Asfura has 40.52% of the vote and Nasralla has 39.18%. Almost 40,000 votes separate the two candidates for president.

Faced with the repeated decline in the count and the advantage of his main opponent, Nasralla said this Monday on his X network account that “the system is rigged.”

For its part, the ruling Libre party called on Sunday afternoon for the “total annulment” of the elections and called for mobilizations, protests and strikes.

The research shows that its candidate and political successor to President Xiomara Castro, Rixi Moncada, is in third place with 19.32% of the vote, far from the two main opponents.