Juan Orlando Hernández, who was president of Honduras for eight years, was extradited to New York on Thursday to face charges of engineering a massive effort to flood the United States with cocaine.
The rare extradition of a former head of state followed Hernández’s arrest in February at his home in Tegucigalpa less than a month after he stepped down from office. The Justice Department accused him of participating in a violent drug trafficking operation that shipped 500 tons of cocaine from Venezuela and Colombia to the U.S. through Honduras.
“We allege that Hernández corrupted legitimate public institutions in the country — including parts of the national police, military, and national Congress,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday. “And we allege that Hernández worked closely with other public officials to protect cocaine shipments bound for the United States. Because of these alleged crimes, communities in the United States suffered, and the people of Honduras suffered.”
The charges said he received millions of dollars for shielding drug traffickers from arrest, including from the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, known as El Chapo, and for facilitating their shipments.
A grand jury indictment unsealed Thursday said Hernández used the money “to enrich himself, finance his political campaigns, and commit voter fraud,” including in connection with the 2013 and 2017 Honduran presidential elections.
He “abused his position as the president of Honduras to operate the country as a narco-state, in order to enrich himself and corruptly gain and maintain power,” the charges said.
The former president said on social media this year that the U.S. charges were based on the claims of “drug traffickers and confessed assassins who were extradited by my government.”
A Honduran judge ruled last month that Hernández could be extradited to the U.S. After arriving in New York, Hernandez will be taken to a federal courtroom in Manhattan to formally face the charges.
March 30, 202203:06
Juan Antonio Hernández, the former president’s brother, was sentenced to life in prison last year after being convicted for drug trafficking and weapons violations. During that trial, federal prosecutors said then-President Hernández agreed to use his country’s military forces to provide security for drug traffickers.
The extradition of Hernández marks one of the few times a former head of state has been brought to the U.S. to face charges. In 1990, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was arrested on drug trafficking charges during a U.S. military operation. He was convicted in federal court in Miami. Noriega died in 2017 at Hospital Santo Tomas in Panama City. He was 83.
Michael Kosnar contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
