The trial of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, accused of smuggling hundreds of thousands of kilos of cocaine into the United States and turning his country into an oasis for drug traffickers, began in New York City. During the first few days of court, prosecutors presented witnesses with explosive testimony about bribes while the defense tried to discredit their testimony.
Hernández is the first former head of state to be tried criminally in the United States since Panama's former dictator Manuel Noriega was paraded through U.S. courts in 1991.
The defendant served as president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022. Prosecutors accuse him of taking advantage of his position to protect numerous drug traffickers in exchange for mountains of money, which he would later use to finance his campaigns and buy allegiances.
It was precisely that money that propelled the career of a young congressman to become one of the country's youngest presidents. He was even seen on occasion as a great ally of the United States in stemming the influx of migrants and fighting drugs in Latin America.
Highlights of the first week of the trial
His case began in Manhattan courts on February 22. The former president is accused of turning Honduras into a "narco-state" for some two decades.
The first days included several good testimonies, which, of course, implicated Hernández. For example, they claimed that the accused accepted millions of dollars in bribes to stop anti-narcotics raids or to warn traffickers when they were imminent. How much are we talking about? At least one of the bribes allegedly came from the Sinaloa cartel, owned by Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, at the time the world's most powerful drug trafficker, who reportedly sent Hernandez $2.4 million.
Another testimony alleges that Guzmán traveled to Honduras in a helicopter to personally deliver $1 million in cash to the president's brother, Tony Hernández, who has already been convicted in the case.
In turn, Hernández was accused of promoting a corrupt officer, Juan Carlos Bonilla, famous for allegedly once killing a member of a rival cartel with a bazooka, to become head of the National Police.
On the other side of the bench, the defense tried to discredit witness testimonies, such as that of Devis River, leader of the 'Cachiros' cartel, who referred to Hernandez in court as "my business partner."
According to Renato Stabile, the former president's lawyer, people like River are untrustworthy. "These are depraved people. These are psychopaths. These are people who are not worthy of your trust. Mr. Hernández does not sit with drug traffickers. He stood up to drug traffickers," he said in court.
The case of Juan Orlando Hernández
The former president was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa in February 2022, just three months after leaving office. He was extradited to the United States in April of that same year to face charges for his alleged crimes on U.S. soil.
Federal prosecutors in New York spent years investigating drug trafficking-related criminal organizations in Honduras, hoping to get to the person their sources said was at the top: Hernández himself.
"This is a case about power, about corruption, about large amounts of cocaine and about a man who was at the center of it all," said prosecutor David Robles, as he pointed to Hernández, who wore a dark gray suit during the first day of the trial.
According to the prosecutors' plea, 'El Chapo' Guzmán, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, traveled to Honduras for a meeting in which he agreed to pay Hernandez $1 million in exchange for protection. Following the deal, the defendant allegedly provided police escorts and helped drug planes avoid law enforcement.
For Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank, the Hernández case will be uncomfortable for some D.C. leaders.
"Juan Orlando Hernández was the poster child for this complete contradiction in U.S. foreign policy interests. The U.S. was left supporting a criminal," he told The Wall Street Journal.
According to Shifter, some U.S. officials disregarded the president's alleged corruption in exchange for their cooperation in controlling Honduran immigration.
