Juan Orlando Hernandez: Who is the former president of Honduras that Trump will pardon and why did the American judicial system accuse him of turning his country into a “drug state”

After completing his studies at the Liceo Militar del Norte, in San Pedro Sula, he studied law at the National University of Honduras.

He began his political career at the university, where he served as president of its student association between 1988 and 1989.

After graduating, he entered the First Secretariat of Congress as assistant to his brother Marcos Augusto, who was already a deputy, and there he began to make contacts with the powerful National Party.

After completing his studies in public administration at the State University of New York (USA), he ran for the position of representative of the Lempira constituency, a position he held during four legislative terms since 1998.

In 2010, he became President of Congress during the Porfirio Lobo administration and promoted a security agenda and aggressively helped fight organized crime, earning him support from conservative and business sectors.

In 2012, he won the internal elections of the National Party, and a year later he won the presidential elections.

During his inauguration on January 27, 2014, he said: “I am Juan Orlando Hernandez and I come from the lands of the invincible Cacique Lempira; with the support of the people I am the President of Honduras.”

During his campaigns and missionary events, he often evoked this association with the indigenous leader.

Hernandez became president and promised to “do what I must do to restore peace and tranquility to my people” who were suffering from the onslaught of violence linked to drug trafficking.

Organized crime has infiltrated various institutions and homicide rates have risen so dramatically that Honduras has become the most violent country in the world in the past decade, according to UN figures.

Hernandez’s willingness to extradite drug trafficking suspects to the United States and some reforms in the security forces have been presented as evidence of his desire to clean up the country.

However, suspicions about his gang ties exploded when in 2018 one of his brothers, former congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, was arrested in Miami (USA) by federal agents and charged with drug trafficking.

He told Congress in 2021, after his brother was sentenced to life imprisonment and the evidence against him increased: “I was not, and will not be, a friend of any of these criminals, and I will continue my fight until the last day of my government, whatever the cost.”

If the above was not enough, the accusations of diverting social security funds sparked widespread protests in the country, demanding his resignation.

His decision not to renew the mandate of the Mission to Combat Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH), a body created in agreement with the Organization of American States to combat corruption, further damaged his image.

However, the above did not prevent the politician from running for a second consecutive term, even though the Honduran Constitution prohibits immediate re-election. Specifically, his arch-rival Manuel Zelaya’s desire for re-election was the justification for his ouster in 2009.

A questionable ruling by the Supreme Court allowed him to compete in his election, which the OAS asked to repeat because it considered that the irregularities surrounding it “made it impossible to determine the winner with necessary certainty.”

His re-election announcement unleashed a new wave of protests that were brutally suppressed by the authorities, resulting in the deaths of at least 23 people, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The request was ignored and Hernandez remained in power until 2022.

In February 2022, just days after leaving the presidency, the former president was arrested and a few weeks later extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges.

Prosecutors who tried him said: “He paved a highway for transporting cocaine to the United States, protected by machine guns.”

Gone are the days when Washington viewed him as a reliable ally in the war against drugs, providing more than $50 million in aid and military assistance. In 2019, Trump thanked him for his cooperation.

Although allies of Trump and Hernandez believe that the former governor was treated unfairly by the government of Democrat Joe Biden, the truth is that investigations against him began during the first administration of the Republican Party.

During the investigations conducted by US prosecutors, they discovered that Hernandez had been linked to drug traffickers since at least 2004, long before he became president, and that he had facilitated the smuggling of about 500 tons of cocaine into the United States.

With the help of phone records and testimonies of repentant criminals, investigators concluded that drug traffickers paid millions of dollars in bribes to allow cocaine to be smuggled from Colombia and Venezuela “with virtual impunity.”

Prosecutors noted that Hernandez’s alliance with the cartels was not only “for the purpose of enriching himself,” but also “to remain in power (…) in a corrupt manner.”

According to the charge against him, the politician used the money he obtained from drug traffickers to later bribe officials and manipulate the presidential elections in which he competed in his favor.

For his part, Hernandez denied these accusations and stated that he was “unjustly and wrongly accused.”

However, the evidence and testimonies presented in the court that tried him contradict this.

“We will put the drugs under their noses,” said the former boss of drug trafficker Giovanni Fuentes Ramírez, as one of the witnesses who testified at his trial said.

Another defendant, former Mayor Alexander Ardon, confirmed that he gave millions of dollars to both Hernandez and former President Lobo to ensure unobstructed routes for transporting drugs.

Ardon calculated that, with the help of the Honduran authorities, he transported about 250 tons of cocaine without problems, in partnership with Tony Hernandez, the brother of the former president, and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, both of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States.

In June 2024, Judge Kevin Castel not only sentenced the former president to serve nearly half a century in prison, but also fined him US$8 million.

But Hernandez doesn’t just have legal troubles in the United States. In Honduras, once he was extradited, that country’s judicial system confiscated 33 properties, eight companies and 16 vehicles, the Public Ministry said.

Now it remains to know when the pardon and release of the former president will be implemented and whether he will return to Honduras to resume his political career.

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