Demonstration against the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, and his brother Tony Hernández, this Tuesday in front of the Federal Court of New York.Peter Foley / EFE
Judge Kevin Castel, of the federal court in Manhattan, on Tuesday handed down a sentence of life imprisonment plus another thirty years in prison against Juan Antonio
Tony
Hernández, brother of the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández.
In October 2019, a popular jury in New York found Tony Hernández guilty of four charges brought by the United States Department of Justice related to drug trafficking, including the shipment of tons of cocaine to the United States.
The sentence against Hernández comes one year and five months after he was found guilty, since the reading was delayed continuously at the request of the defense of the former Honduran congressman, 42 years old.
“Generally, we try to pass judgment within six weeks of the verdict.
In their case, they asked me to postpone it so it could take place in a courtroom.
A year and five months have passed after the verdict.
This is rare.
I have never seen him, ”said Judge Castel.
During Tuesday's reading, representatives of the United States prosecutor's office pointed out that Hernández “conspired with his brother, the president of Honduras, provoked brutal acts of violence and channeled drug money for campaigns of the National Party in exchange for promises of protection. to drug traffickers ”.
On January 8, United States federal prosecutors presented motions to the Southern District of New York accusing President Hernandez of having accepted bribes from drug traffickers.
The documents do not directly name the politician, but refer to him as conspirator number 4 (CC-4), but refer to his position as president and the link with his brother and former deputy.
In the accusations, Hernández is accused of giving protection to "drug traffickers" and even published an alleged quote from the president in which he affirms that he wanted to "put the drug in the noses of the gringos by flooding the United States with cocaine."
At the beginning of March, during the trial against the Honduran drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes, the New York prosecutor, Jacob Gutwillig, affirmed that the president entered into an alliance with a local cartel, Los Cachiros, to introduce thousands of kilos of cocaine into the United States.
The prosecutor described Honduras as a "narco-state."
The president has not been charged with these allegations.
Tony Hernández was arrested in 2018 at the Miami airport.
During the process against him, it transpired that he received a million dollars from the hand of the former drug lord Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán, as a contribution to the presidential campaign of Juan Orlando Hernández in 2013. The prosecution also tried to demonstrate during the judgment that the former deputy was part of a criminal plot that through drug trafficking allowed him to exercise power and control, under the protection of his brother.
At the end of January, in an appearance in the Honduran Congress before the discussion of the beginning of an impeachment trial against him, the president settled: “I have not been, I am not, nor will I be friends with any of these criminals, and I will continue my fight until the last day of my government, whatever the cost ”.
The president has pronounced this Tuesday on the sentence against his brother and in a message on Twitter he affirmed that "for the whole family, the news that is expected from New York will be painful."
Hernández has questioned the process against his brother, about which he stated: “What else can be said about a trial in which the testimony of the main 'cooperator' of the prosecutors is now exposed by the secret recordings of the DEA itself as a lie?"
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