"As the United States continued its military campaign against what the Trump administration calls narco-terrorists in the Caribbean, President Donald Trump announced he would pardon a former Honduran president notorious for his involvement in the US drug trade. Juan Orlando Hernandez was sentenced in 2024 to 45 years in prison after being convicted of conspiring to distribute more than 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US."
"If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn't mean you arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life, Trump said, without providing evidence of the alleged set-up. Trump inaccurately stated the nature of the former Honduran president's arrest and conviction: the US did not try Hernandez after his presidency because he sold drugs in Honduras, but because he was deeply involved in the transit of illicit drugs into the US."
President Donald Trump announced plans to pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was sentenced in 2024 to 45 years (540 months) for conspiring to distribute over 400 tonnes of cocaine into the United States. Hernandez was indicted, extradited in April 2022, tried, and convicted; a judge denied his motion for a new trial. The White House framed the pardon as correcting a miscarriage of justice and criticized the three-week jury trial as scant on evidence. Trump claimed Hernandez was set up by the Biden administration, a characterization inconsistent with the conviction’s focus on drug transit into the U.S.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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