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The former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández was found guilty this Friday of drug trafficking and arms trafficking by a jury in a federal court in New York, at the end of a historic trial that could lead him to spend the rest of his life in prison.

On its second day of deliberations, the 12-person jury announced its unanimous verdict shortly before 1:30 p.m. local time: guilty on all three counts of which the prosecution accused him.

“I am innocent, tell the world, I love you,” said Hernández as he left the court, addressing his relatives, including two sisters-in-law, and the three generals who came to testify on his behalf in this trial.

Flanked by his lawyers, moments before Judge Kevin Castel called the parties together to hear the ruling, Hernández, 55, appeared to pray.

He followed the verdict, shaking his head in disbelief as the jury foreman answered each of the questions the judge asked to establish his guilt.

The prosecution, which maintains that the former president created a narco-state during his presidency (2014-2022), accused him of conspiring to traffic drugs to the United States, as well as conspiring to traffic weapons and possession, which are punishable by life imprisonment.

#CRONIO #LAST MINUTE | Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted of conspiring with drug traffickers and for using his country’s national police to illegally import tons of cocaine into the United States.

The jury delivered its verdict in court… pic.twitter.com/WDAXpDAz8D

— Cronio Digital Newspaper (@croniosv) March 8, 2024

The sentence, in weeks or months

The judge has yet to announce the former president’s sentencing in the coming weeks or months.

According to the US prosecutor’s office, Hernández participated and protected between 2004 and 2022 – when he was a deputy, president of Congress and then President of the Republic – a network that sent more than 500 tons of cocaine to the United States.

In exchange, he would have received millions of dollars from the cartels, including from the Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán – sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States – and from creating a “narco-state” during his presidency (2014-2022).

Honduras was a “super highway” along which a good part of the drugs from Colombia destined for the United States passed, the prosecution recalled during the trial.

Extradited in April 2022 to the United States, three months after handing over the presidency to his successor, the leftist Xiomara Castro, the convicted man is the author of the famous phrase “We are going to shove drugs under their noses (to the Americans). ) and they won’t even notice,” according to a witness.

When asked by AFP, defense lawyer Renato Stabile, with misty eyes, said that “obviously the ruling is harsh, but mentally it is very strong.”

#CRONIO The former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández was found guilty this Friday of drug trafficking and arms trafficking by a jury in a federal court in New York, at the end of a historic trial that could lead him to spend the rest of his life in prison.… pic.twitter.com/4o4YufZcEA

— Cronio Digital Newspaper (@croniosv) March 8, 2024

Double speech

This faithful collaborator of the government of Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021) came to boast of Washington’s praise for his government’s work in the fight against drug trafficking.

Prosecutor Jacob H. Gutwillig reminded the jury that in public the accused promoted laws against drug trafficking and extraditions of drug traffickers to the United States, he met with US officials and authorities, but “none of this undoes what the accused did behind the doors”.