The United States has asked Honduras for the extradition of former President Juan Orlando Hernández (2014-2022), accused of drug trafficking, official sources close to the process told AFP on Monday.
The information was made public shortly after the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on its Twitter account that it had sent an “official statement from the United States Embassy” to the Supreme Court, formally requesting the provisional arrest of “a Honduran politician” for the purpose of extradition to the United States.
According to the same sources, Hernández is in Honduran territory. On Monday night (14), at his residence in the San Ignacio neighborhood of the capital Tegucigalpa, a security delegation was observed.
On February 7, US diplomacy chief Antony Blinken declared that Hernández was included on the list of people accused of corruption or undermining democracy in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
“The United States is promoting transparency and accountability in Central America, making public the visa restrictions against the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, due to acts of corruption,” detailed Blinken. “No one is above the law,” she emphasized.
Hernández, who left the Honduran presidency on January 27 after eight years in office, was accused by New York prosecutors of links to drug trafficking. His brother, former congressman Tony Hernández, was sentenced in March 2021 to life imprisonment in the United States for the same crime.
In a statement, Blinken noted that “according to several credible media reports”, Hernandez “engaged in significant corruption by committing or facilitating acts of corruption and drug trafficking and using the proceeds of illicit activities for political campaigns”.
Former President Hernández denies all the allegations and says the accusations are a vendetta by the same traffickers his government captured or extradited to the United States.
