{"id":16698,"date":"2024-03-09T00:46:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T00:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/09\/former-honduran-president-found-guilty-in-drug-trafficking-trial\/"},"modified":"2024-03-09T00:46:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-09T00:46:15","slug":"former-honduran-president-found-guilty-in-drug-trafficking-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/09\/former-honduran-president-found-guilty-in-drug-trafficking-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Honduran president found guilty in drug trafficking trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Former President of Honduras Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez was found guilty Friday of drug trafficking by an American jury after a two-week trial in Manhattan federal court.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Prosecutors had accused Hern\u00e1ndez, 55, of conspiring with drug cartels during his tenure as they moved more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States. In exchange, prosecutors said, Hern\u00e1ndez received millions of dollars in bribes that he used to fuel his rise in Honduran politics.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Hern\u00e1ndez was president of Honduras from 2014 until 2022. He was extradited to the United States in 2022 after the completion of his second term in office on charges of conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, conspiracy to possess firearms and destructive devices for drug trafficking, and possession of this type of weapon during the drug trafficking conspiracy.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for each of the charges.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            During his years in office, Hern\u00e1ndez \u201cprotected and enriched the drug traffickers in his inner circle,\u201d the Justice Department said, citing his use of executive power to support extraditions of certain drug traffickers to the US \u201cwho threatened his grip on power\u201d while \u201cpromising drug traffickers who paid him and followed his instructions that they would remain in Honduras.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Prosecutors also said that members of the conspiracy Hern\u00e1ndez participated in relied on the Honduran National Police to protect cocaine loads as they moved through the country.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            Hern\u00e1ndez had denied the charges against him and testified in his own defense earlier this week.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            A lawyer for Hern\u00e1ndez said Friday they would appeal the conviction.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            \u201cHe\u2019s still strong, but he\u2019s quite disillusioned,\u201d Raymond Colon, the attorney, said of the former president.    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            \u201cIt\u2019s a tragedy,\u201d he added, calling Hernandez \u201ca noble man who fought for the same goals that the US had in terms of the war against drugs.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            In a statement, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hern\u00e1ndez \u201cabused his position as President of Honduras to operate the country as a narco-state where violent drug traffickers were allowed to operate with virtual impunity, and the people of Honduras and the United States were forced to suffer the consequences.\u201d    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph inline-placeholder\">            \u201cAs today\u2019s conviction demonstrates, the Justice Department is disrupting the entire ecosystem of drug trafficking networks that harm the American people, no matter how far or how high we must go,\u201d he added.    <\/p>\n\n<div>This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former President of Honduras Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez was found guilty Friday of drug trafficking by an American jury after a two-week trial in Manhattan federal court. Prosecutors had accused Hern\u00e1ndez, 55, of conspiring with drug cartels during his tenure as they moved more than 400 tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States. In <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}