As the United States continues its military operations in the Caribbean against what the Trump administration calls “narco-terrorists,” President Donald Trump announced he would pardon a former Honduran president notorious for his involvement in the U.S. drug trade.
Juan Orlando Hernandez was sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2024 after being found guilty of conspiracy to distribute more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.
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In an exchange with reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said Hernandez had been “framed” by former US President Joe Biden’s administration. “Just because someone sells drugs in that country, that doesn’t mean they’re going to arrest the president and put him in prison for the rest of his life,” Trump said, without offering any evidence of the alleged “hoax.”
President Trump inaccurately described the arrest and conviction of the former Honduran president. The United States did not try Mr. Hernandez for selling drugs in Honduras after he became president, but because Mr. Hernandez was deeply involved in transporting illegal drugs to the United States.
Although this situation is rare, it is not unprecedented.
The White House has billed President Trump’s pardon plan as an effort to correct a miscarriage of justice. White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt criticized Hernandez’s three-week jury trial in a Dec. 1 press conference, saying it lacked evidence.
After the conviction, a judge denied Hernandez’s request for a new trial.
What was Hernandez convicted of?
Hernandez’s presidential term runs from January 2014 to January 2022, during which time he told U.S. officials he would work to combat drug trafficking. President Trump praised his efforts in 2019.
In April 2022, the U.S. government indicted Hernandez on drug and weapons trafficking charges and extradited him to the United States. On June 26, 2024, District Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced him to 540 months in prison and 60 months of supervised release for cocaine importation and related weapons offenses.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Hernandez financed his political career with drug trafficking proceeds and used his presidential powers to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States.
At one point, Hernandez declared, “I want to stuff drugs up gringo’s nose,” the agency said.
The prosecution also included testimony from witnesses, including former traffickers. Documents filed in the lawsuit say Hernandez worked with co-conspirators armed with machine guns, assault rifles and grenade launchers to facilitate the importation of more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, the equivalent of about 4.5 billion doses.
According to witnesses at Hernandez’s trial, the Honduran military and police carried out the orders of the criminal organization.
U.S. prosecutors said Hernandez ultimately received millions of dollars in drug proceeds from the largest and most violent drug trafficking organizations in countries such as Honduras and Mexico. He then used these bribes to further his rise in Honduran politics, thereby allowing him to protect his co-conspirators, prosecutors said.
Hernandez’s younger brother, Juan Antonio Hernandez Alvarado, a former member of the Honduran National Congress, was under government protection under Hernandez’s leadership. Prosecutors say Hernandez also received millions of dollars from former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman.
How could the United States try foreign government leaders?
President Trump said the United States chose Hernandez because he was the president of Honduras. While it is unusual for a foreign president to be prosecuted, it is not unprecedented.
Anthony Clark Arend, a professor of government and foreign affairs at Georgetown University who specializes in international law, said that under international law, a sitting head of state or government enjoys “complete immunity” from prosecution in another country’s courts.
However, restrictions are less strict for former heads of state. Mr. Hernandez had been away for several weeks pending extradition in the United States.
Arend said former heads of state and government are immune from prosecution by other countries for acts committed in their official capacity. However, the United States was able to prosecute Hernandez because drug trafficking has historically not been considered an “official” duty.
Since he is accused of drug trafficking, “there is no obstacle under international law to trying him as a former president for that crime,” Arend said.
Hernandez’s prosecution “appeared to have legitimacy in both the United States and Honduras,” said Daniel Sabet, a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute who studies Central America. “The arrest was seen as legitimate outside of his core supporters.”
Although such prosecutions are rare, they are not unprecedented, most notably in the case of Manuel Noriega in Panama.
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush sent U.S. troops to Panama to capture Noriega, the country’s leader who had been indicted by a U.S. grand jury on drug-related charges. (Noriega’s position as head of government was contested in Panama at the time, and his position was not recognized by the United States.)
After turning himself in and being extradited to the US state of Florida, Noriega was tried and found guilty on eight counts of drug trafficking, money laundering, and extortion. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison. In 1997, a three-judge appeals court panel upheld the charges, ignoring Noriega’s argument that his status as head of state should have preempted the prosecution.
Sabet also mentioned the case of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko, who was arrested in the United States in 1999 on 53 charges of money laundering. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in federal prison.
PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
