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Juan Orlando Hernandez, 55, the previous president of Honduras, has been discovered responsible in New York federal courtroom of taking part in a scheme to ship cocaine into his nation and the USA.
On Friday, a jury within the Southern District Courtroom of New York introduced its verdict after two weeks of deliberations, convicting Hernandez on drug trafficking and weapons prices.
He was convicted of all three legal counts he confronted: the primary for conspiring to import cocaine into the US, the second for carrying “machine weapons and damaging gadgets” to assist cocaine shipments, and Third for conspiring to make use of these weapons. Its objective.
The latter two prices carry a most sentence of life imprisonment.
U.S. prosecutors had accused Hernandez of “partnering with a number of the world's largest cocaine traffickers” and utilizing his public workplace to guard shipments passing by way of Honduras.
In return, prosecutors argued, Hernandez obtained bribes to advance his political profession. In a single instance, when Hernandez campaigned for his first time period as president in 2013, prosecutors mentioned he accepted almost $1 million from Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the chief of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, a strong drug trafficking syndicate. {Dollars} had been accepted.
Hernández has denied the allegations in opposition to him and has as a substitute sought to strengthen his picture as a tough-on-crime politician, identified for “mano dura” or “iron fist” techniques.
His protection staff equally tried to make use of damaging testimony as an try by drug traffickers and different criminals to get lighter sentences of their circumstances.
Hernandez mentioned of the prosecution's witnesses, “All of them have a motivation to lie and they’re skilled liars.”
Protection lawyer Renato Stabile used his closing arguments this week to make the case that his shopper was “wrongfully accused.”
However prosecutors portrayed Hernandez as utilizing “the complete energy and authority of the state” to show Honduras right into a “cocaine superhighway for the USA.”
Hernández's two phrases in workplace, from 2014 to 2022, had been marked by a sequence of scandals, and his trial within the US was intently watched domestically and within the nation's diaspora, with some going as far as to reveal exterior the courtroom. Had been current.
“Folks in Honduras suffered rather a lot,” Cecilio Alfaro, a courtroom attendee, advised Al Jazeera final week. “There can be justice, divine justice.”
Hernández, identified by his initials JOH, campaigned on the slogan “Una Vida Mejor” – a greater life for Hondurans. He additionally promised to crack down on drug trafficking inside the nation's borders, utilizing his inaugural speech to ship a message to cocaine traffickers: “The social gathering's over.”
However quickly, his personal administration turned mired in controversy, together with allegations that he had squandered funds meant for the nation's social safety establishment for private achieve.
U.S. prosecutors mentioned he additionally used his workplace to guard his youthful brother, former Honduran congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, from arrest and extradition. The US Drug Enforcement Company (DEA) finally arrested Tony Hernandez in 2018, whereas his brother was nonetheless president.
In 2021, Tony Hernandez was sentenced to life in jail in US federal courtroom for his function in distributing 185 tons of cocaine.
Simply weeks after leaving workplace in February 2022, former President Hernández surrendered to US authorities who surrounded his residence in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. He was extradited that April.
In a information launch following Friday's sentencing, the USA Legal professional's Workplace lauded the jury's verdict, saying it “sends a message of justice to all corrupt politicians who would think about the same path”.
U.S. Legal professional Damian Williams mentioned, “Juan Orlando Hernandez had each alternative to turn out to be a pressure for good in his native Honduras.” “As an alternative, he selected to abuse his workplace and the nation for his personal private achieve.”
Legal professional Basic Merrick Garland equally mentioned that Hernández had “abused his place” to show Honduras right into a “narco-state”.
“As immediately's sentencing demonstrates, the Division of Justice is disrupting a whole ecosystem of drug trafficking networks that hurt the American individuals, irrespective of how far or how far above us,” Garland mentioned in an announcement Friday. Should go.”