Court: Honduras ex-president can be extradited

In a blue suit and shackles, former President Juan Orlando Hernández told the Honduran Supreme Court of Justice on Tuesday that he had no ties to drug traffickers. The court announced Wednesday that it would extradite Hernández to the United States to face drug trafficking and weapons charges. As Hernández and his lawyers came out of the courthouse, they said they would appeal the decision. They have three days to do so. Hernández claims that former drug traffickers who implicated him are trying to frame him.

Why the extradition request? U.S. prosecutors made the request on Feb. 15, the same day Hernández was brought into custody after a siege of his home in Honduras. It came a few weeks after Hernández, who spent eight years as president, was replaced in office by Xiomara Castro. The U.S. Justice Department gave a document to the Honduran judge that accused Hernández of participating in a “violent drug-trafficking conspiracy” and accepting bribes between 2002 and 2022. The document implicated the former president in the transportation of 500 tons of cocaine from Venezuela and Colombia to the United States via Honduras. U.S. prosecutors said he used money from bribes to fund his presidential campaign. 

Dig deeper: Read Carolina Lumetta’s report in The Stew on how U.S. investments in South America aim to combat corruption that contributes to the U.S. border crisis.