The former president of Honduras Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014) announced this Friday that he will appeal the conviction of his wife, Rosa Bonilla, who was sentenced again this Thursday for corruption after an earlier sentence was annulled for the same charges.
“We are going to appeal this decision, it is a ruling outside the law, you cannot judge a person for the same facts,” Lobo denounced, according to the newspaper ‘La Prensa’.
In addition, he has stressed that “it was not appropriate” to send Bonilla to jail because “the sentence had to be final, we would have to go to an appeal and he has not left,” explained the former president, who has remarked that his wife ” It’s not even sentenced.”
“Rosa is strong, as a mother it is complicated. If there are things that one cannot see, it is the suffering of their children, and in this case the ones who suffer the most are the children,” Lobo lamented.
Finally, the former president of Honduras has shown his suspicion that both he and his wife may be being persecuted by political opponents, for which he has aimed to “follow the thread.”
For its part, Bonilla’s defense has stressed that there was already an acquittal, so “she cannot be accused of the same crime.” “The law was distorted and I think that in Honduras we are losing the rule of law,” warned the former first lady’s lawyer, Juan Carlos Berganza.
Bonilla had already been sentenced to 58 years in prison in September 2019 for, during Lobo’s mandate, having deposited twelve million lempiras -currently, more than 440,000– from the social work budget of the Office of the First Lady in a personal account
In March 2020, the Supreme Court reversed Bonilla’s sentence for procedural errors and ordered a new trial. Four months later, she was released because she had already spent more than the legal limit of two years in preventive detention.
Now, Bonilla has been found guilty again for fraud and embezzlement. The personal secretary of the former first lady, who had also had his 48-year prison sentence lifted, has also been convicted of fraud.