NEW YORK – He former president honduran Juan Orlando Hernandez took the witness stand Tuesday during his judgment in New York, and denied that he had partnered with drug traffickers to protect them in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes.
His testimony in federal court in Manhattan came after several days of testimony from drug traffickers who hope to get some leniency for their long prison sentences in exchange for their cooperation in the case against the former Honduran president. Drug traffickers claimed that Orlando Hernández protected the flow of drugs in exchange for millions of dollars that helped fuel his rise to power.
Prosecutors said Hernández, who served as president from 2014 to 2022, used the Central American nation’s military and police forces to help drug traffickers move drugs through the country to the United States. On U.S. soil, he was often seen as beneficial to U.S. interests in the region, by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Hernández denied helping drug traffickers or accepting bribes, and described himself as an anti-drug activist who did everything he could to help the United States in its search for drug traffickers, including the extradition of more than two dozen individuals.
A defense attorney asked Hernández if he ever accepted bribes or offered protection to various drug cartels or drug traffickers who have been mentioned several times during the trial that began two weeks ago.
He insisted he didn’t do it.
And, regarding a witness who claimed that he trafficked drugs worth tens of millions of dollars while Hernández served as mayor in Honduras, the former president said that he did not promise to protect him from prosecution if he agreed not to run for another term as mayor when it emerged press reports that pointed him out as a drug trafficker.
Never, Hernández responded.
Threats
At one point, they asked him if a cartel wanted to kill him.
The FBI warned me about it, he replied.
The former president’s brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, a former Honduran legislator, was sentenced to life in prison in 2021 in federal court in Manhattan after being found guilty of drug charges.
Prosecutors said Tony Hernández obtained and distributed millions of dollars in bribes between 2004 and 2019 from drug traffickers to his country’s politicians, including $1 million from notorious Mexican kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to Juan Orlando Hernández.
The former president was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, in February 2022 — three months after leaving office — and was extradited to the United States in April of that year.
Source: With information from AP
