3 Dec 2025 8:39 am
get er done donMAGA don’t like it
tRumpers don’t mind
Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, has walked free after President Donald Trump pardoned him - a man once characterised as the key figure in a drug trafficking scheme that flooded America with over 400 tonnes of cocaine.
Trump has said that Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison by a US court, is a victim of political persecution and has been "treated very harshly and unfairly".
The pardon has surprised some experts, given the seriousness of the crime and the administration's promised crackdown on illegal drugs flowing into the US.Hernández's federal trial lasted three weeks in 2024. US prosecutors argued that he was a central figure in a more than 18-year-long drug-trafficking scheme that funnelled over 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US - equivalent to roughly 4.5 billion individual doses."The people of Honduras and the United States bore the consequences," said then-attorney general Merrick Garland.Prosecutors detailed how Hernández abused office by shielding drug traffickers armed with machine guns and grenade launchers. In exchange, he received millions of dollars to fuel his political campaigns. Multiple branches of the state were involved, including the Honduran National Police, who protected cocaine shipments as they moved through Honduras to the US for distribution, prosecutors said.In some cases, the drug traffickers associated with Hernández committed violent crimes and murders to quell rival gangs and grow their enterprise, they said.
