By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez worked “hand in hand” with drug traffickers who fueled his rise to power with millions of dollars in bribes, a U.S. prosecutor said on Wednesday in his opening statement at Hernandez’s trial.
Hernandez was close to Washington during his 2014-2022 tenure. Honduras received more than $50 million in U.S. anti-narcotics assistance and tens of millions more in security and military aid during his presidency, and he won support from former President Donald Trump for cracking down on migration.
Three months after he left office, however, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged him with accepting millions of dollars in bribes from cocaine traffickers in exchange for using his position to protect them. Attorney General Merrick Garland said he abused his power to operate the country as a “narco-state.”
“For years, he worked hand in hand with some of the largest and most violent drug traffickers in Honduras to send ton after ton of cocaine here, to the United States,” prosecutor David Robles said.
Hernandez, 55, has pleaded not guilty. His defense lawyer was expected to give an opening statement later on Wednesday. He has argued that drug traffickers have smeared him to seek to lighten their own sentences and to extract revenge over his administration’s law enforcement actions.
Robles acknowledged that Hernandez publicly professed to fight drug trafficking, and at times worked with the United States to do so.
“But behind the scenes he made sure that drug traffickers who remained loyal to him were protected,” Robles said.
Among the traffickers Hernandez protected was his brother, Robles said. Hernandez’s brother, former congressman Tony Hernandez, was convicted on U.S. drugs charges in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.
Earlier in February, two co-defendants who were initially set to be tried alongside Hernandez – his cousin Mauricio Hernandez and former Honduras national police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla – pleaded guilty to drug trafficking.
He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years and up to life in prison if convicted on all counts. The trial began with jury selection on Tuesday and is expected to last between two and three weeks.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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