The United States asked Honduras, Monday February 14, for the extradition of ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez (2014-2022), whom they suspect of drug trafficking. On Twitter, the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it has given the country’s Supreme Court a “official communication from the Embassy of the United States”, calling for the arrest of “Honduran Politics” for the purpose of extradition, but without specifying the name of this person.
The American channel CNN showed the ministry’s document on the air, which asks “the provisional arrest for purposes of extradition to the United States of America of Juan Orlando Hernandez Alvarado” – he left office on January 27, after two terms of office and after the inauguration of the president elected in November, Xiomara Castro. The information was subsequently confirmed by the Honduran authorities. The Supreme Court has called an emergency meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning, to appoint a judge to examine this request.
An important security device was visible, in the night from Monday to Tuesday, around the residence of “JOH”, as the ex-president is nicknamed, in the district of San Ignacio, in Tegucigalpa. It was unclear as of Monday night whether he was still in Honduras. Tuesday morning, he published an audio message on his Twitter account, intended for the police and the judge who must be appointed by the Supreme Court, ensuring to be ” ready to [se] present voluntarily for [se] defend”.
“Accomplice” of his brother
His lawyer, Hermes Ramirez, considered that this police deployment, which he said prevented the former president’s advisers from accessing his home, constituted a “achievement” the rights of his client. For the moment, no arrest warrant has been notified and no judge appointed to examine the case, denounced Mr. Ramirez on the television channel TN5.
“JOH’s” younger brother, former MP Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, was sentenced in the United States in March 2021 to life in prison for drug trafficking. New York prosecutors suspect ‘JOH’ of being his ” partner in crime “. Another of the relatives of the former head of state, Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, was also sentenced to life on February 8 for drug trafficking by the federal court in Manhattan, New York.
During the trial, prosecutors accused “JOH” of helping the defendant smuggle cocaine into the United States. Mr. Fuentes Ramirez himself said during the hearing that President Hernandez had told him that they were going “put the drugs in the nostrils of the gringos” without them even realizing it.
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