“Facilitated drug smuggling.” The former President of Honduras was sentenced to 45 years in prison

Yesterday, Wednesday, a New York court issued a decision to fine former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and imprison him for 45 years after he was convicted of drug trafficking, according to the ruling pronounced by Manhattan Federal Court Judge P. Kevin Castel.

At the sentencing, Hernandez said: “I am innocent, I have been wrongly and unjustly accused.” While a Manhattan judge said that Hernandez was a "two-faced, power-hungry politician who protected a select group of smugglers," while anti-Hernandez demonstrators gathered in front of the court, before the ruling was pronounced, raising banners denouncing the crimes of the former president.

Hernandez was convicted last March of facilitating the smuggling of about 500 tons of cocaine, mostly from Colombia and Venezuela, to the United States through Honduras since 2004, long before his presidency.

Prosecutors said Hernandez used drug money to enrich himself, fund his political campaign and commit election fraud in the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections. In court testimony, Hernandez admitted that drug money was paid to almost all political parties in Honduras, but denied accepting bribes himself.

Hernandez was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, three months after leaving office in 2022, and was extradited to the United States in April of the same year.