Honduras issues arrest warrant for ex-president recently pardoned by Trump
Honduras’s top prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was freed from US federal prison last week after being pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya Alvarez said in a Spanish-language post on X that he had asked government agencies and global police agency Interpol to “to execute the international arrest warrant against former President Juan Orlando Hernández.”
Zelaya stressed, “We have been lacerated by the tentacles of corruption and by criminal networks that have profoundly marked the life of our country.”
The top prosecutor’s post included a photo of the Supreme Court’s arrest order, which was dated November 28, the same day Trump announced his intention to pardon Hernández –– a move that drew criticism from both sides of the political aisle in the US and Honduras.
Hernández ’s wife, who insists he is innocent, said he will not return to Honduras immediately due to safety concerns and that he is currently in a “safe place” in the US.
Hernández, who served as president from 2014 until 2022, was convicted and sentenced last year to 45 years in federal prison and given an $8 million fine by a US judge for drug trafficking offenses.
He has also been at the center of massive anti-corruption investigations — known as Pandora II — in his country, which have targeted current and former politicians suspected of diverting public money. In 2023, along with several former officials, he was charged with involvement in the misappropriation of more than $12m in state funds for his political campaign.
Moreover, US prosecutors had accused Hernández of conspiring with drug cartels during his tenure as president as they moved more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States. In exchange, prosecutors said, Hernández received millions of dollars in bribes that he used to fuel his political rise.
The former president had insisted he was innocent, claiming his trial was “rigged” and that it relied on the accusations of criminals who sought revenge against him.
Trump’s clemency was rebuked by Republican and Democratic members of Congress, who questioned his decision to pardon someone with a drug trafficking conviction when his administration claims to be combating drug trafficking in Latin America by ramping up military activity and launching controversial strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.
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