On Monday, the U.S. Foreign Affairs Ministry requested the Honduran Supreme Court the extradition of former President Juan Orlando Hernandez (2014-2022), who accepted US$3-million bribes from drug traffickers to finance his political campaign.
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The National Police and soldiers surrounded Hernandez’s home, and the Supreme Court called an emergency session to be held on Tuesday to appoint a judge who analyzes the request.
Hernandez’s lawyer Hermes Ramirez accused the authorities of being unfair to his client, who he claimed has immunity as a current member of the Central American Parliament.
"The National Security Ministry is violating the rule of law by wanting to execute an arrest warrant that violates the procedure established by law," Ramirez stated and insisted that his representative has the right to the innocence presumption.
Although the Honduran Constitution does not allow presidential re-election, a ruling by the pro-government-majority Supreme Court authorized Hernandez to run for a second term in 2017.
Washington recognized his re-election, but U.S. prosecutors later pointed him out as a co-conspirator in the trial of his brother Antonio Hernandez, an ex-congressman who was sentenced to life imprisonment for drug and weapon trafficking in March 2021.
"We made clear the outrage to which I am being subjected," the former president alleged, stressing that the charges against him are part of a revenge complot of drug traffickers who his government captured and extradited to the United States.