The trial taking place in New York against the former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández has begun with explosive incriminations by the prosecution.
The US authorities have accused the former president this Wednesday of having used the Police, the Army and the judicial system of his country to "protect" drug traffickers and "amass" a fortune.
“That man [Hernández] sent tons and tons of cocaine to the United States,” the representative of the prosecution, David Robles, stated belligerently.
“He used his power to protect drug traffickers and receive a lot of money in return,” he said.
The official announced that throughout the trial he will present the evidence that supports his accusation, while the Honduran politician's defense has dismissed the allegations.
The trial began on Tuesday in the American city with the selection of the people who will form the jury and who will listen to the arguments of both parties and then decide the future of the former Honduran president, detained in his home in Tegucigalpa in February 2022 hours after Washington will request his extradition.
The United States has accused JOH (as he is known in Honduras) of introducing thousands of kilos of cocaine into that country from Colombia during the period in which he was president (2014-2022).
Hernández was arrested two weeks after he finished his term and handed over control of the Central American country to the current president, Xiomara Castro.
The president has not commented on the process being carried out in the New York courts.
The one who has raised his voice is Castro's husband, also former president Manuel Zelaya.
The politician expelled from power by a coup d'état in 2009 and exiled to Costa Rica has defended himself through his X account (formerly Twitter) against the accusations made by one of the witnesses presented by the prosecution, who has accused him of receive checks from organized crime to finance his political campaign.
The same witness has also said that former president Porfirio Lobo accepted financing from criminal groups.
“I have never received, either personally or in my account, money or checks, neither during my campaign 19 years ago in 2005, nor later in the presidency, during exile, or in the resistance,” Zelaya stated.
Lobo, for his part, denied the accusations.
I have never received, either personally or in my account, money or checks from Mr. Sánchez, neither during my campaign 19 years ago in 2005, nor later in the presidency, during exile, or in the resistance, EVER.
@innercitypress
— Manuel Zelaya R. (@manuelzr) February 21, 2024
The witness presented by the prosecution, whose identity has been preserved but who Honduran media names as an “accountant” who was present in alleged meetings that JOH held during his presidential campaign with drug traffickers, has assured that the former president protected the drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes “to "poking drugs up the noses of gringos."
The US authorities accuse Hernández of setting up an entire network in Honduras to ensure that cartels such as the Sinaloa cartel introduced drugs into the country with the support of police, military and members of the judicial system.
“With the help of powerful organizations such as the Sinaloa cartel [Hernández] became a powerful man who abused that power to send drugs to the United States without fear or consequences,” said the representative of the New York prosecutor's office.
The trial against JOH has raised great expectations in Honduras, a country mired in violence unleashed by organized crime organizations and gangs and which has one of the highest poverty rates on the continent.
During the first days of the trial, dozens of people have protested against the former president near the New York court, demanding that justice convict him.
In March 2021, a Manhattan federal court judge sentenced Juan Antonio
Tony
Hernández, brother of the former president of Honduras, to life imprisonment plus another thirty years in prison.