The United States announced on Monday February 7 that it had placed the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez – in power between January 2014 and January 2022 – on a list of corrupt Central American personalities, for having financed political campaigns with the money obtained from drug trafficking.
“No one is above the law” tweeted US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Monday evening. “As reported by numerous credible journalistic outlets, Juan Orlando Hernandez participated in significant acts of corruption (…) or drug trafficking, and used the money obtained from illicit activities to contribute to political campaigns”, he added in a statement.
In reality, the placement of Mr. Hernandez on the so-called “Engel” list (named after former parliamentarian Eliot Engel), which lists individuals identified as corrupt and antidemocratic in the three countries of the “Northern Triangle” (Honduras, Guatemala and Salvador), goes back to the very publication of the list, on 1er July 2021, but Washington had kept it secret until then. “We have declassified and disclosed the incorporation of the former Honduran president” in the list, Mr. Blinken announced in his press release.
The publication of this list caused a stir in the region: fifty-five personalities were included, including another former Honduran president, Porfirio Lobo Sosa (2010-2014), accused of having received bribes of a local cartel, and his wife, Rosa Elena Bonilla de Lobos, or a former Guatemalan president, Alvaro Colom (2008-2012), for fraud and embezzlement. High-level judges, deputies, ministers, senior officials in office, are also included in this list, which is regularly updated. People who are registered there can no longer apply for a visa or enter the United States.
Honduras, a “narco-state”, according to a US prosecutor
But the absence of this list of President Juan Orlando Hernandez had been noticed, while “JOH”, as he is called in Honduras, was designated by a US prosecutor as ” partner in crime “ of his brother Juan Antonio, known as “Tony”, himself sentenced in March 2021 to life imprisonment in the United States for drug trafficking.
“We do not apply the same criteria to heads of state for reasons of global reciprocity, then explained to World a US diplomatic source. If American justice has elements to prosecute a head of state, it can do so. But the tradition of our system is to avoid this kind of situation. » With JOH no longer president since the inauguration of his successor, Xiomara Castro, on January 27, there was no longer any need to keep his inclusion on the Engel list secret.
You have 53.89% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.