2024-02-20 23:00:33
After numerous postponements, the former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez He began to be tried this Tuesday in New York, accused of helping smuggle tons of cocaine into the United States for almost two decades.
The trial, which will last between two and three weeks according to Judge Kevin Castel, began with the selection of the 12 members of the jury and 6 alternates from a total of 40 preselected, half of whom have expressed problems being present all the time. trial, AFP noted.
The former president, known as JOH in Honduras, appeared at the hearing flanked by his lawyers and dressed in a suit and tie. At first he seemed nervous, rubbing his hands all the time. Lawyer Raymond Colon asked him to calm down.
Hernandez must still decide whether he will take the stand to testify.
Extradited to New York in April 2022the 55-year-old former president is accused of participating in and protecting a network that sent more than 500 tons of cocaine to the United States between 2004 and 2022.
In return, received “millions of dollars” from drug cartels, among them the Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán, sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States, according to the New York prosecutor’s office.
If found guilty of the three charges brought against him by the prosecution – drug trafficking, trafficking and possession of weapons – could be sentenced to life imprisonmentlike his brother Tony Hernández and his collaborator Geovanny Fuentes, who participated in the same network.
Protest against Hernández in New York. Photo EFE
In front of the court, a group of about twenty Hondurans demonstrated this Tuesday to demand three life sentences for the former president for each of the charges. “Here is your narco president”they chanted.
Your defense
In a letter published on Monday, the former president (2014-2022) reiterated that he is “innocent” and a “victim of revenge.”
“I am innocent, I am a victim of revenge and a conspiracy by organized crime and political enemies,” said the former president in the letter published on the X network by his wife, Ana García.
In the message addressed to the Honduran people, which will have little impact on the trial in the Southern Federal Court of Manhattan, Hernández described the accusations as “unfair” and “full of lies constructed in a fictional manner based on the testimony” of “confessed drug traffickers”, that they negotiated with the Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern District of New York to achieve “the reduction of their sentences.”
A reconstruction of the first session of the trial against Hernández. AP Photo
Other defendants, former police chief Juan Carlos “Tigre” Bonilla and former police officer Mauricio Hernández, who were to be tried with the former president, They pleaded guilty to drug trafficking.
This decision, which could mean a reduction in sentence, could be harmful to JOH, who always has boasted of Washington’s praise for his government’s work in the fight against drug trafficking.
According to the former president’s lawyers, Bonilla was going to testify against him.
In his defense, Hernández alleges that during his administration laws against drug trafficking were approved, like the one that facilitated his own extradition.
Late Friday, Judge Castel once again denied a defense request to delay the trial again between 90 and 180 days, alleging a lack of time to examine the thousands of pages presented by the prosecution.
Of them, 2,200 since January 13 and that are marked as sensitive and can only be reviewed by the accused in the presence of a specialized lawyer.
It is unusual to see a former president being tried in an American court. Before him, they were convicted by the American justice system the Panamanian Antonio Manuel Noriega, in 1992, and the Guatemalan Alfonso Portillo, in 2014.
Last year, former Mexican Homeland Security Secretary Genaro García Luna, the highest-ranking Mexican official to sit on a bench in the United States, was convicted of drug trafficking, among other charges. The announcement of his sentence is scheduled for June 24, after being delayed on several occasions.
Since 2014, Honduras has extradited 38 people accused of drug trafficking to the United States, where they have already been convicted in addition to Tony Hernández and Geovanny Fuentes, Fabio Lobo, son of former president Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014), to 24 years in prison, and former deputy Fredy Renán Nájera, to 30 years.
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