NEW YORK — Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted Friday in New York on charges that he conspired with drug traffickers and used his military and national police powers to allow tons of cocaine to enter the United States unhindered.
The jury returned its verdict in federal court after a two-week trial that was closely watched in his home country.
Hernández, 55, served two terms as leader of the Central American nation of about 10 million people. He was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, three months after leaving office in 2022 and extradited to the US in April that year.
U.S. prosecutors accused Hernández of collaborating with drug traffickers as early as 2004, saying he took millions of dollars in bribes as he rose from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the country’s highest office.
Hernández acknowledged in a trial statement that drug money was paid to virtually all political parties in Honduras, but he denied accepting bribes himself.
He noted that he had visited the White House and met with US presidents while positioning himself as a champion in the war on drugs working with the US to curb the flow of drugs into the US.
In one case, he said, he was warned by the FBI that a drug cartel wanted to kill him.
He said his accusers fabricated their claims about him in an attempt to gain clemency for their crimes.
“They all have the motivation to lie, and they are professional liars,” Hernández said.
But the prosecutor mocked Hernández for apparently claiming to be the only honest politician in Honduras.
During closing arguments Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig told the jury that a corrupt Hernández “paved a cocaine highway to the United States.”
Lawyer Renato Stabile said his client has been “wrongfully charged” as he urged an acquittal.
Trial witnesses included human traffickers who acknowledged responsibility for dozens of murders and said Hernández was an enthusiastic protector of some of the world’s most powerful cocaine dealers, including notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who ran a U.S. serving a life sentence.
Hernández, who wore a suit throughout the trial, was mostly emotionless as he testified through an interpreter, repeatedly saying “no sir” when asked if he had ever paid bribes or promised to protect traffickers from extradition to the US.
His brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, a former Honduran congressman, was sentenced to life in prison in Manhattan federal court in 2021 for his own conviction on drug charges.
