Assistant US Attorney, Jacob Gutwillig has accused Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernandez of assisting a drug trafficker smuggle tons of cocaine into the US.
The prosecutor made the accusation during his opening statement at the trial of accused drug trafficker, Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez.
Court documents identify President Hernandez as a co-conspirator. They quote him saying he wants to “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos’ by flooding the United States with cocaine.”
The statements are based on the statements of an accountant. He revealed he attended meetings between the president and Fuentes Ramirez in 2013 and 2014.
The accountant ran a rice business that Fuentes Ramirez allegedly laundered drug money through. He will testify later at the trial.
Prosecutors said that Fuentes Ramirez paid the President $25,000 (21,000 euros) to be allowed to move drugs throughout the country without interference.
“Apparently $25,000 is all you need to bribe the president,” said defence attorney, Eylan Shulman. This was in an attempt to discredit the witness.
Mr Hernandez has been President of Honduras since January 2014 and won a second term in 2018.
Prosecutors allege that much of his political rise from President of the Congress to President was fuelled by drug money. According to prosecutors, drug traffickers paid him in exchange for protection and to avoid interference from security forces.
He has not been charged with any crime. But American prosecutors revealed for the first time that they were investigating him.
Accused before
The President has also been implicated in other recent criminal prosecutions. This includes the conviction of his brother, Juan Antonio Hernández in 2019 on cocaine trafficking charges in a Manhattan Court.
During that trial, he was accused of accepting more than $1 million from Mexican drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The prosecutors repeated those accusations in the motions for the recent trial.
However, President Hernández has long denied any suggestion that he cooperated with or benefited from drug traffickers.
Prior to the hearing, President Hernández asserted again that he had waged war on drug trafficking, not aided it. He said that the allegations against him come from drug traffickers seeking revenge and looking to lighten their sentences.
He also posited that if drug traffickers are rewarded for lies, “the international alliance (against drug trafficking) would collapse with Honduras.”
“I will maintain international alliance in the fight against drug trafficking until my last day as president on January 27, 2022. But if narcos with the magic key of lies gain benefits from the USA for false testimonies, the international alliance with Honduras and several other countries would collapse.”
President Hernández
Potential sanctions cocaine
Democratic Senators have called on President Joe Biden and the State department to sanction President Hernandez.
Last month, the senators filed a bill that requested the US President impose sanctions on Hernandez to “determine whether he is a specially designated narcotics trafficker.”
The bill called for a suspension of security aid to Honduras, as well as exports of weapons and tear gas for the country’s security forces. It also calls on the Honduran government to discuss establishing an anti-corruption mission with the US.
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