Since the US-supported military coup in 2009 in Honduras, The Violence of Development (TVOD) website has featured many articles which have included reference to or have focussed on President Juan Orlando Hernández (two terms, 2014 to 2022). Such frequent reference was made to him because of his role in turning the country into a virally corrupt narco-state. He has now been sentenced to 45 years in jail for operating a drug cartel and for turning the country into a gangster fiefdom during his time in office. He should never have been in office. His election was fraudulent on both occasions and was supported by the governments of the USA and Canada, in the name of ‘democracy’ of course.
Here we have included various clips and references to reports about his trial and sentencing.
From ENCA Newsletter No. 91, July 2024.
On June 26, 2024, former President Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced by a New York City court to 45 years in jail on charges of operating a drug-trafficking cartel during the entire time he was in office, propped up as a “democratic ally” by the US and Canada. It is hard to overstate how much damage and violence this regime did to the institutions of the State, people and environment of Honduras.
From Rights Action, 27 June 2024.
45 years in jail: Former U.S. & Canadian-backed, drug-trafficking President of Honduras
https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/45-yrs-in-jail-for-former-pres-of-honduras
It is impossible overstate how complicit the U.S. and Canada are in having supported, enabled and legitimized for close to 13 years the repressive, “open for global business”, drug-trafficking regime headed by former President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced on June 26 to 45 years on charges of drug-trafficking.
Rights Action is a US- and Canada-based organisation that supports human rights and justice, land and environment defence struggles in Guatemala and Honduras.
From Al Jazeera, 26 July 2024.
US ally with tough-on-crime politics, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for his conviction on drugs and weapons charges. A Manhattan jury in March found Hernández, 55, guilty of accepting millions of dollars in bribes to protect United States-bound cocaine shipments belonging to traffickers he once publicly proclaimed to combat.
US District Judge Kevin Castel passed down the sentence in a Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday. “I am innocent,” the 55-year-old Hernández, who led the Central American nation from 2014 until 2022, said at his sentencing. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.”
Hondurans at home and abroad had cheered the conviction, celebrating it as a rare instance of accountability for corruption and deceit by a member of the country’s ruling class.
In March, the jury found that the former leader, often known by his initials JOH, had taken millions of dollars in bribes to shield large shipments of cocaine bound for the US.
Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence, arguing that it would send a firm message to other politicians who use their power to protect powerful criminal groups. “Without corrupt politicians like the defendant, the kind of large-scale, international drug trafficking at issue in this case, and the rampant drug-related violence that follows, is difficult if not impossible,” prosecutors wrote on Monday.
During a two-week trial, prosecutors said Hernández used drug money to bribe officials and manipulate voting results during Honduras’s 2013 and 2017 presidential elections. convicted traffickers testified they bribed Hernández.
Testifying in his own defence, Hernández denied taking bribes from drug cartels. His lawyers, meanwhile, accused the convicted traffickers of being out for revenge over Hernández’s anti-drug policies. JOH’s brother Tony Hernández was sentenced to life in prison in the US in 2021 on drug charges.
From Rights Action.
Rights Action recommends Episode 7, parts I and II, of the ‘Under the Shadow’ podcast series that recap the U.S. and Canadian-backed military coup d’état of June 27, 2009, and then 13 years of unconditional U.S. and Canadian support for the Honduran narco-regime.
- Episode 7, Part I – 2009 Honduras: La Resistencia
- Episode 7, Part II – Honduras 2009: Legacy of a Coup
In Update 3 of the podcast, Karen Spring (former Rights Action colleague, long-time co-coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network) takes the listener inside the trial that found Juan Orlando Hernández guilty of drug trafficking. Karen provides a devastating summary of just how much violence and damage the narco-regime did to Honduras, its people and society, government and State institutions, all enabled and legitimized by the U.S. and Canada.
Update 3 – Narcodictator, Convicted
‘Putting the U.S. and Canada on Trial’ campaign
Rights Action encourages folks to follow the work of the Honduras Solidarity Network leading a campaign to hold the U.S. and Canada responsible for supporting the Honduran narco-state.
https://www.hondurasnow.org/category/narco-trial-campaign/