Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez tried in the United States for international drug trafficking

Around ten o'clock Tuesday morning in New York, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez entered, dressed in a dark suit, courtroom 26B of a New York court. At 55, “JOH,” as he is nicknamed in his country, is accused by the United States of having participated in the smuggling of 500 tons of cocaine for almost two decades. At the end of this trial, which is expected to last several weeks, he could be sentenced to life imprisonment.

On the evening of February 14, 2022, just two weeks after leaving office, “JOH” was the subject of an arrest warrant from the Supreme Court of Honduras and an extradition request from the United States. His house is surrounded by six hundred police officers. When he left his house to go to the police the next day, he was immediately shackled at the wrists and ankles by the police, then fitted with a bulletproof vest. In April 2022, he left his country for the United States on a DEA flight, the American anti-drug agency.

According to federal prosecutors, “JOH” transformed Honduras into a “narco-state” during his presidency from 2014 to 2022. He allegedly enriched himself through drug trafficking, receiving millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers. Among them, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the notorious Mexican drug lord sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019, allegedly paid him $1 million during the 2013 presidential campaign. US prosecutors say Juan Hernandez used this money to tilt the results in his favor, a technique he reportedly used again for his re-election in 2017.

Also read: Former President of Honduras accused of drug trafficking

When he was president, however, “JOH” was seen as a good student by Washington. Honduras had received fifty million dollars in aid from the United States to fight drug trafficking. The Central American country had even managed to attract the favor of Donald Trump for its repressive migration policy and significant drug seizures. But the rapprochement fizzled. In 2021, a witness testified during a hearing that he heard the president boast that he was going to "shove drugs up the noses of the gringos (a derogatory term for Americans), and they won't know." [have] never.”

For his part, the ex-president denies all his accusations, which he considers “unjust” and “filled with lies based on testimonies from drug traffickers” wanting to cajole American justice. Alone in the dock - the two other defendants having chosen to plead guilty to avoid a trial - Juan Orlando Hernandez faces three counts: criminal conspiracy for drug trafficking and two others for trafficking and possession of weapons. He declares himself “innocent” and believes he is the victim of “revenge by the cartels, [of] a plot orchestrated so that no government will ever resist them again.” He has not yet announced whether he will testify on the stand.

The image of the ex-president is also tarnished within his country. His political opponents have accused him of corruption, and voters no longer view him favorably. When the US extraction request was announced in 2022, around 100 people gathered in the Honduran capital to celebrate his possible arrest. “Juanchi, you’re going to New York! “, then chanted the crowd. On Tuesday, around twenty Hondurans gathered in front of the New York courthouse, expressing their desire to see their “narco-president” convicted.

Two years after “JOH” left the presidency, the small Central American country remains plagued by organized crime and insecurity. Although Honduras' homicide rate fell in 2022, reaching its lowest level in sixteen years according to authorities, it remains four times higher than the world average, with 35.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.