A jury in New York on Friday found former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez guilty of trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, enriching himself while protecting and abetting some of the region’s most infamous drug cartels.
The 12 member jury returned its verdict at a federal court after a two-week trial, which has been closely followed in his home country. Hernandez was convicted of conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S. and two weapons counts. The charges carry a mandatory minimum of 40 years in prison and a potential maximum of life. Sentencing was set for June 26.
The 55-year-old Hernandez, who appeared to pray while awaiting the verdict, shook his head in disbelief as the jury foreman delivered guilty findings for each of three counts: conspiracy to import cocaine, illegally using and carrying machine guns, and possessing machine guns as part of a “cocaine-importation conspiracy.”Bruce Bochy, Nathaniel Lowe on Lowe’s injury
His lawyer Raymond Colon said Hernandez would appeal the verdict.”I am innocent, tell the world,” he told friends, relatives and supporters — including three generals who testified on his behalf — as he was escorted from the courtroom. “I love you.”
Hernandez was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, three months after leaving office in 2022 and was extradited to the U.S. in April of that year.
Hernandez is accused of having facilitated the smuggling of some 500 tons of cocaine — mainly from Colombia and Venezuela — to the United States via Honduras since 2004, starting long before his presidency.
Prosecutors said he had worked in particular with the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, at the time headed by infamous Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
With the guilty verdict, Hernandez follows in the footsteps of other former Latin American heads of state convicted in the United States, like Panama’s Manuel Noriega in 1992 and Guatemala’s Alfonso Portillo in 2014.
