Ex-Honduran President Given 45 Years in US Prison

Facts

• Former Honduran Pres. Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison by a US federal court following his conviction in March of conspiring to bring cocaine into the US and possessing weapons such as machine guns.¹
• The former president, who has maintained his innocence and claims he was 'wrongly and unjustly accused,' was also fined $8M.²
• Hernández was arrested three months after leaving office in early 2022 and later extradited to the US to face charges related to what prosecutors say was a two-decade-long collaboration with drug traffickers and acceptance of millions of dollars in bribes, which began before his presidency.³
• The jury also found Hernández used drug money to rig elections in 2013 and 2017. However, he claimed that the accusations were revenge by convicted traffickers who opposed his anti-drug policies as president.⁴
• US prosecutors sought a life sentence for Hernández, to send what they claimed would be a clear message to other politicians regarding the consequences of corruption.⁵
• Hernández was once considered one of Washington's most important allies in the region. He is the first head of state convicted of drug trafficking in the US since Panama's General Manuel Noriega in 1992.⁶

Sources: ¹BBC News, ²CNN, ³Associated Press, ⁴Voice of America, ⁵Al Jazeera and ⁶Guardian.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by United States Department of Justice. Hernández abused his power to support one of the largest and most violent drug trafficking conspiracies in the world, so thankfully, justice has finally been served. Besides helping facilitate this criminal enterprise, he used the money from trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine to the US to fund his political career. In return, he provided political protection to some very violent and murderous gangs, turning Honduras into one of the world's most dangerous countries.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Responsible Statecraft. Beginning with the US-backed coup in 2009, the US government cultivated Hernández's political career and then used him as its puppet for almost a decade. Washington put Hernández in power to ensure US economic and military policies remained intact, which meant they turned a blind eye to the corrupt side of his administration. Once Hernández was no longer in power, Washington pretended to be the good guy and prosecuted the man it had been controlling for years.