Brother of Honduran president jailed for life for drug trafficking

AFP   A federal judge in New York on Tuesday sentenced Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández to life imprisonment for trafficking 185 tons of drugs to the United States, according to prosecutors with the collaboration of his brother, the president of Honduras.

Following a two-week trial in New York in October 2019, former Congressman Tony Hernández, 42, was found guilty of all four charges, including trafficking of cocaine to the United States, false testimony, and possession of firearms.

Judge Kevin Castel said the life sentence for Tony Hernandez, who was detained at a Miami airport in November 2018, was “well deserved.”

Prosecutors for the southern district of New York assured in their process that the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, was a key partner of his brotherTony, although he has not been charged.

Prosecutors had demanded life in prison, stressing that Hernández “had not shown any remorse”, while the defense had asked for the mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years.

“The defendant was a Honduran congressman who, along with his brother Juan Orlando Hernández, played a leadership role in a violent and state-sponsored drug trafficking conspiracy,” prosecutors wrote to the judge before sentencing.

Tony Hernández operated “with total impunity” thanks to the protection of his brother and contributed to the “putrefaction” of Honduran institutions, the prosecution said during the trial.

A witness from the prosecution, the former drug trafficker and former Honduran mayor Alexander Ardón, testified in the process that he witnessed a meeting in 2013 in which the now incarcerated Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán, then head of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, handed over a million dollars in cash to Tony Hernández for his brother’s election campaign.

The president of Honduras was also accused by US prosecutors of being a partner of another Honduran drug trafficker, Geovanni Fuentes Ramírez, found guilty of drug trafficking on March 22 after a trial presided over by Judge Castel

Juan Orlando Hernández, a lawyer who came to power in January 2014 and is in his second term, denies having been a partner of his brother or Fuentes in the cocaine trafficking to the United States and says that drug traffickers who testified against his brother in both processes want revenge on him for his fight against drug trafficking.