TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Honduras Legal professional Normal Johel Zelaya stated Monday that he had ordered Honduran authorities and requested Interpol to execute a 2023 arrest order for ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández, pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Hernández was launched from federal jail in america final week after Trump pardoned him. Hernández had been sentenced in U.S. federal courtroom final 12 months to 45 years in jail for serving to transfer tons of cocaine to america.
Hernández went from supposed U.S. ally within the conflict on medicine to the topic of a U.S. extradition request shortly after he left workplace in 2022. He was detained and despatched to the U.S. by present President Xiomara Castro of the social democrat LIBRE celebration.
Zelaya included a photograph of the two-year-old order signed by a Supreme Court docket Justice of the Peace for alleged fraud and cash laundering expenses. The order says that it have to be executed “in the case that the accused is freed by United States authorities.”
Dozens of Honduran officers and politicians have been implicated within the so-called Pandora case by which Honduran prosecutors alleged authorities funds have been diverted by means of a community on nongovernmental organizations to political events, together with Hernández’s 2013 presidential marketing campaign.
A lawyer for Hernández, Renato Stabile, stated in an electronic mail that, “This is obviously a strictly political move on behalf of the defeated Libre party to try to intimidate President Hernandez as they are being kicked out of power in Honduras. It is shameful and a desperate piece of political theatre and these charges are completely baseless.”
Zelaya had stated after Trump introduced his intention to pardon Hernández that his workplace must take motion to finish impunity.
Hernández’s spouse stated after his launch that the previous president was in an undisclosed location for his security.
The drama comes whereas Honduras remains to be ready to seek out out who its subsequent president shall be.
Trump endorsed Nasry Asfura, a former Tegucigalpa mayor from Hernández’s conservative Nationwide Occasion. Asfura was main Salvador Nasralla, additionally a conservative from the Liberal Occasion, by barely a share level because the vote rely slowly superior.
An Asfura victory might doubtlessly clean the way in which for Hernández’s eventual return to Honduras. Nasralla has made combating corruption the centerpiece of his marketing campaign and has stated Hernández stole the 2017 election from him in a vote that was stuffed with irregularities.
Hernández at all times denied any wrongdoing whereas in workplace and insisted he was among the many strongest antidrug allies of america.
Trump had introduced his intention to pardon Hernández simply days earlier than Honduras’ nationwide elections, throwing a brand new aspect into a detailed contest. Whereas some Hondurans stay nostalgic for Hernández’s two phrases in workplace, many have been shocked {that a} man convicted of drug trafficking in a intently watched trial might instantly be launched early in his sentence.
Trump stated Hondurans had requested the pardon for Hernández and that after his case he determined Hernández had been unfairly handled by prosecutors.
