Honduras’ attorney general announced that he has issued an arrest warrant for former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was released from a U.S. federal prison last week following a pardon from President Donald Trump.
Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya Álvarez announced on X Monday that he has asked government agencies and the international police agency Interpol to arrest Mr. Hernández on charges of money laundering and fraud.
“We have been torn apart by the tentacles of corruption and criminal networks that have deeply affected the lives of our country,” Zelaya said.
His post included a photo of the Supreme Court’s arrest order dated Nov. 28, the same day President Trump announced his intention to pardon Hernández, a move that drew criticism from both the U.S. and Honduran political sides.
Hernández, who served as Honduras’ president from 2014 to 2022, was convicted by a U.S. judge last year on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison and an $8 million fine.
Hernández’s domestic charges are related to Pandora II, a massive corruption investigation in Honduras that involved the country’s top politicians, government officials and businessmen. Prosecutors allege that Mr. Hernández illegally siphoned off about $2.4 million in kickbacks from public contracts for his 2013 campaign.
Hernandez’s lawyer, Renato Stabile, said in a statement to CNN that the warrant for Hernandez’s arrest was a political ploy by Honduras’ ruling Libre party, a rival to the conservative National Party that he once led.
“This is clearly a strictly political action on behalf of the defeated radical leftist Libre party, which has been forced from power by the Honduran people. This is a shameful and desperate political arena, and these accusations are completely baseless,” Stabile said.
Luis Santos, head of Honduras’ Corruption and Crime Unit, told CNN a few days ago that Hernández has “an outstanding case before the Supreme Court for money laundering and fraud” and that a previous international arrest warrant had been in the custody of the Security Ministry and Interpol since September 2023.
Santos added that if Hernández does not return to Honduras, he will request extradition to the United States.
President Trump formally pardoned Hernandez on December 3, telling reporters at the White House that he felt “very good” and calling the prosecution “a horrible witch hunt for Mr. Biden.”
The move was criticized by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who questioned President Trump’s decision to pardon a convicted drug trafficker at a time when his administration is focused on disrupting drug trafficking in Latin America, ramping up military operations and launching controversial attacks on alleged drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean.
U.S. prosecutors had accused Hernández of conspiring with a drug cartel to transport more than 400 tons of cocaine to the United States via Honduras while he was president. In return, prosecutors said, Mr. Hernández accepted millions of dollars in bribes, which he used as fuel for his political rise.
Hernandez had maintained his innocence, calling his trial “rigged” and based on the accusations of criminals seeking revenge against him.
In an X-post on Wednesday, the former Honduran leader thanked President Trump for “having the courage to stand up for justice when a weaponized system refuses to acknowledge the truth.”
