Honduras issues arrest warrant for ex-president pardoned by Trump

by · UPI

Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Honduras' attorney general on Monday night announced that he had issued an international arrest warrant for former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, days after he was released from a U.S. prison following a pardon from President Donald Trump.

Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez said in a statement that he had instructed ATIC, Honduras' elite criminal investigative body housed within the Public Prosecutor's Office, to pursue the international arrest warrant, while urging security agencies and international allies, including INTERPOL, to do the same.

"We have been lacerated by the tentacles of corruption and by criminal networks that have deeply marked the life of our country," he said.

Hernandez is accused of money laundering and fraud in what is known as Pandora II, a corruption case in which prosecutors allege that between 2010 and 2013, a network siphoned nearly $12 million in public funds meant to alleviate extreme poverty in Honduras through abuse of authority, fraud and money laundering.

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As part of the sprawling case investigating several government officials, including ministers, Honduras' Public Prosecutor's Office filed a criminal complaint against Hernandez in October 2023. Prosecutors accuse him of receiving at least $2.5 million of the siphoned funds through foundations, front men and fictitious contracts. The money was allegedly used to finance his political campaign.

In the United States, Hernandez was charged with drug trafficking and weapons offenses in late January 2022 during the Biden administration amid its crackdown on corruption in Central and South America.

Honduran authorities arrested him in February 2022 and extradited him to the United States, where he was convicted in March 2024 on all counts and sentenced in June of that year to 45 years in prison.

U.S. prison officials released Hernandez earlier this month after receiving a pardon from Trump, who said the disgraced Honduran president had been "treated very harshly and unfairly."

Trump made the announcement while urging Hondurans to vote for conservative Nasry "Tito" Asfura for president ahead of the Nov. 30 elections, in which he is challenging left-leaning President Xiomara Castro, moves widely seen as opposition to her government.

The announcement of the pardon was met with criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, as well as critics of Trump's administration, which has killed 86 people in 22 military strikes targeting alleged drug-trafficking boats in international waters.

"Hernandez once boasted at a meeting of narco-traffickers that 'together they would shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.' What message does pardoning this criminal send to parents who have lost children to narcotics, to law enforcement officers risking everything to stop the flow of deadly drugs?" Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a Dec. 2 floor speech.

"This disgraceful pardon should be met with bipartisan condemnation as an affront to our values, our safety, our rule of law, our democracy."

Hernandez served two terms as president, from 2014 to 2022.

The election between Asfura and Castro was still too close to call as of Monday night.