NEW YORK_ The former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández fought drug trafficking in public but in private he protected drug traffickers, the New York prosecutor’s office indicated this Wednesday in the midst of the trial against him for three crimes that could lead him to spend the rest of his days in prison. jail.
After the constitution of the jury that will seal the fate of the former president (2014-2022), the prosecution and defense presented their versions before taking a statement from the first witness, a former accountant for a rice plant who had already testified in the trials of the former president’s brother. , Tony Hernández, and his partner Geovanny Fuentes, both sentenced to life imprisonment.
Prosecutor David Robles addressed the jury, made up mostly of people with higher education, warning them that this is a case about “power, corruption and massive cocaine trafficking.”
“This powerful politician maintained a public speech in which he said that he fought drug trafficking and through the back door he associated with drug traffickers” to protect the shipment of drugs to the United States, he stressed, “abusing” the support of the army. , the police and the justice system, in exchange for “millions of dollars in bribes.”
The Mexican Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, sentenced to life in prison in the United States, contributed “millions of dollars” to his questioned second campaign for re-election in 2017, according to the New York prosecutor’s office.
Honduras, the prosecutor recalled, is a fundamental transit point for drugs produced in South America, especially in Colombia, before transiting through Mexico with its final destination to United States territory.
The prosecution accuses the lawyer and politician, who became the first re-elected president since the return of democracy in 1981 by the National Party of Honduras, of having protected a network that sent more than 500 tons of cocaine to the United States between 2004. and 2022. It started when he presided over Congress.
Specifically, he is charged with three charges: conspiring to traffic drugs and weapons and possession of weapons. If found guilty of all the accusations, he could be sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, like Tony Hernández and Fuentes.
Instead, his defense lawyer presented him as a heroic leader who fought drug trafficking together with the US authorities.
Defense of the former president
For its part, the former president’s defense asked the jury not to believe that everything that the prosecution maintains, much less what the main witnesses can testify, many convicted people who are going to receive reductions in their sentences for their collaboration and who They act out of “revenge” for the person who sealed their fate.
Above all, let them stick to one fact: when Hernández assumed the presidency, Honduras was the world’s “capital” of homicides and 87% of the drugs that arrived in the United States passed through that Central American country.
That decreased by 50% and 80%, respectively, during his government, which promoted “dozens of laws” to fight this scourge, such as legislation against money laundering or allowing extradition – which has facilitated the sending of 38 people to the United States since 2014 accused of drug trafficking – according to their lawyers.
Also, they continued, the creation of a special force in the police to fight against drug trafficking, a policy that even earned praise from Washington during the Donald Trump government (2017-2021).
“You will not see any video of receiving money, nor emails or messages nor any sign of personal wealth” that confirms the prosecution’s accusations, pointed out his defense.
-Drug “under their noses”-
The first witness for the prosecution, José Sánchez, who for 15 years was an accountant for the Graneros Nacionales company, located near Puerto Cortés, the main dock in Honduras, recalled seeing the then president and Fuentes meeting on two occasions at the headquarters of said company to talk about drugs and protecting “whoever provided them.”
He repeated what he had said in previous trials, that the defendant told Fuentes: “We are going to shove the drugs under their (the Americans’) noses and they are not going to even notice.”
Although he is not obliged to do so, the defense, in an attempt to go all out, plans for the former president to take the stand.
“There is no obligation to make this decision now,” advised Judge Kevin Castel, who is investigating the case.
Source: AFP/AP
